Sunsets
Acepilot
AN - This fic was going to be a three-parter (with one each on Phil/Kimi, Tommy/Lil and Chuckie/Angelica) but I wrote this one then got distracted by "In the End". I might come back and finish this sometime soon. I thought I'd share with you the so-far only chapter of "Sunsets", which is something really nice, simple, and something I'm quite proud of having written. Enjoy! Keep in mind that it isn't strictly finished, which is why the C/A and T/L plotlines are alluded to.
Disclaimer - the characters of AGU are property of KlaskyCsupo.
I stagger kind of half-heartedly over to my towel, falling in a grace-less heap on the cloth and hoping to let the exhaustion drain out of my body. Basketball and soccer and the like keep me physically fit enough, but swimming at the beach really goes some way to taking it out of you.
I check my surroundings to make sure everyone's okay, despite the effort that it requires. Yep, they're all good. Chuckie and Angelica are kind of looking at each other uneasily but otherwise everything seems normal. I don't think the two of them have ever exchanged a platonic glance in their life, actually, so their uneasiness could be translated as normalcy. Dil's swimming off to the right, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he's trying to communicate with the undersea beings, despite promising not to. We're not really fussed either way, actually. I told him to say "You're welcome" if he ever did get the lines of communication open to dolphins. He just looked at me like I was crazy. Which, coming from Dil, is either a true honour or a true insult. And, finally, Tommy and Lil are curled up on Tom's towel, finally appearing to have sorted out their differences and worked everything out.
I grin tightly to myself. "I do good work," I mutter quietly.
"You do good work?" An amused voice asks.
I moan slightly and roll over. Kimmi is silhouetted against the orange sky behind her, but I can just about make out a smirk on her face. "You do good work. Yes, okay Phil. You did the work."
"Well, evidently, I meant 'we do good work'," I retreated cautiously. "Your part in the plan is acknowledged and valued.
"My part? You mean the idea, planning and execution?"
"You didn't do that much," I mutter dispassionately, at which she kicks me in the thigh.
"I'm just messing with you," she confesses, laying down on a nearby towel. "You did good. You got your sister and Tommy back together."
I sigh quietly. "Yeah, I did."
She looks over at me and quirks her eyebrow. "Alright, what was with that?"
"What was with what?" I ask.
"That sigh. Come on Phil, I know you better than that. Every breath has a meaning." She rolls over onto her side and props herself up on her elbow. "What's up?"
I sigh again, quieter this time. "It's nothing, really." I gaze steadfastly at the sky. "It's just..."
For once, words fail me.
"Are you worried about Tommy and Lil?" she asks.
I shake my head slowly, and the orange sky seems to turn wavy. "No, no. Nothing like that." I let my head loll so I can face her without fully moving my body. "I'm a bit worried about me."
She quirks her eyebrow again. "What are you worried about you for?"
I sort-of-shrug. I'm lying in sand, so it's not easy. "Because I seem stuck."
"You need a spade?" Kimmi asks.
I roll my eyes, but can't resist having a slight chuckle at that. "I seem stuck in a rut of bad relationships."
She looks at me with a slightly disbelieving expression on her face. "Phil, we're nineteen. We're too young to have ruts."
I look at the sky again. "Do you know how many girls I've been out with in the last three years?"
Her expression almost imperceptibly darkens. "A lot."
"And do you know how many of them I've actually cared about?" I ask, trying to ignore the glare growing on her face.
"No, how many?" she asks through stiffly gritted teeth.
"Not one of them," I tell her. "When I made Varsity basketball I had girls falling off my shoulders, practically. And everyone kept telling me, 'go for it, go for it.' So I went for it." I sigh yet again, slowly realizing what she meant about the sighs. "It was what everyone else seemed to think was a good idea. And for once, I went with popular opinion."
"You certainly never seemed to complain," she mutters, and I can see her pull her legs up under her.
"It wasn't like that, Kimmi," I tell her, barely realizing that I used her name. I get off the ground and start walking aimlessly along the sunset tinged beach, toward the rock pools. "It was completely not like that. It started out fun, sure. We'd go out to clubs and have a good time, but every time one of them wanted something more, I couldn't give it to them, because I didn't care about them. Not really, anyway." I pick up a flat stone and skip it across the calm water of the cove. "I had everything every teenage boy wants and I realized that I didn't want it."
"So? Good for you! You break the trend!" Kimmi pressed encouragingly, her voice seemingly freed again from the misery that had pervaded it thusfar in this conversation.
"Yeah, but knowing that I don't want meaningless sex with any girl who's willing doesn't help me work out what I do want in a relationship," I tell her. "I know what I don't want, but I don't know what I actually do want."
"Well, what made you not care about these girls?" she asks, sitting next to where I'm standing on a relatively dry rock.
I shrug, skipping another stone along the light waves. "They were airheaded bimbos?" I offer, chuckling slightly. "Nah, they weren't," I rescind. "Not all of them, anyway." I cant my head as I contemplate the issue. I realize I'm actually struggling here. "It was because they were coming to me, I think."
"Isn't that generally an advantage?" Kimmi asks, looking up at my face.
I shake my head. "No." I skip another rock and start contemplating aloud. "When I finally do settle on a serious relationship, I want it to be with a girl who I fall in love with. A girl who shares enough in common that we have some nice topics of conversation, but has enough differences that it stays interesting. A girl who I can play basketball with or who won't drag me to girly shops if we go to the mall together, but at the same time gets a bit of a thrill out of dressing up and would want me to lead when we dance and have me open doors for her and everything." I grin slightly. "I don't want a girl who flings herself at me. I want a girl who would admire me from afar."
"Pushing it there a bit, aren't we Phil?" she asks amusedly.
I shrug. "Well, at least someone who would have to work up the guts to ask me out. 'Cos I'd sure as hell have to work up a nerve as well."
She nods slowly at me. "I hope you find her some day, Phil."
I turn and offer her a hand up. "So do I."
And so we walk back along the beach, back to camp. And I don't realize it straight away, but her hand's still in mine.
please review. unless your one of the morons who's been flaming me, in which case you will be laughed at long and loud.