2019-07-20 - To the Coast

Between the various vehicles that park at 9 Oak Avenue, it's easy enough to get the occupants of that house, a couple days' clothing and food, a pair of surf boards, a giant tent, and a pony keg to the northernmost parts of Ocean Shores, where it becomes less touristy and there are actually some more hidden little coves that are still technically public property. The spot they've claimed is a favorite among locals -- the beach isn't quite as sandy as other places along this stretch of shoreline, but there are dunes immediately behind the beach to protect from the wind, and little headlands to either side to shelter the bay and funnel in waves for surfing, body and otherwise.

Marius kills his bike and pulls off his helmet, cutting off the dramatic Hans Zimmer soundtrack soaring within the protective headpiece. Dismounting, he turns toward the car, clapping his hands together and heading around to pop the trunk, "Right! Mead comes first, yeah? Then setting up the tent?" Of course Marius knows that this is a bad idea. He just doesn't care. Unfortunately, the pony keg is under most of the other gear in the car.

Because someone was clearly smart and packed it that way, forcing Marius to instead put up the tent before breaking out the mead. Or, that would be what someone would say if someone asked. Even if it was true or not.

"TENT!" Ash calls towards Marius as she climbs out of the car, stretching like it'd been a lot longer of a drive than it really was. She stretches her arms up above her head, then she twists herself around, stretching her back out. Then she moves towards the back of the car to open it up, "Come help me get the tent, you and I can really quickly set it up...Really quick." Last time she tried setting up a tent it honestly took her a while. She gets distracted.

Astrid bounces out of the car next, jangling her keys in her hand as she steps back to the rear of the vehicle to help with the unloading.She hipchecks Ash before looping both arms around her to hug tightly. Then she is looping Runa into the hug so it's one big embrace. She sticks her tongue out at Marius. "Cm'on, Ree. I'll help you with the tent." She will even enlist/order Jens to help, too. "Ash, you got the food organizing?" She swings her pack over her shoulder before she reaches into the car's back to haul out the tent with Marius.

Marius groans aloud, shaking his head and waving a dismissive hand at Ash, "Bah!" Astrid's agreement draws another loud, "BAH! No one remembers how to have fun anymore." Still, he hauls the tent out cheerfully enough, adding a sharp whistle for Ash's twisting and stretching. Shouldering the massive bag for the massive tent, he heads over a little way from the car and motorcycle, dropping it down into the sand and starting to haul sections out, "I'm warning you though, just because I'm looking for a job in construction now doesn't mean that I know how to put this thing up." He can probably figure it out, but that's a lot less fun than just poking at it until it's standing. "I'm timing us, Ash. If I don't have a horn of mead," because of course he has an actual drinking horn strapped to the back of his pack on the bike, "in my hand in ten minutes, I'm going to be upset."

"Yeah, I got the food." Ash replies, smooching Astrid on the cheek before she lifts a hand, saluting Astrid about the food. "Go help His Majesty before he messes the tent up." She shoos everyone off so that she can turn her attention towards hauling the rest of the stuff out of the car. It's food, coolers, cooking pots. Things that they'll need to have so that they can survive a few nights without starving. It's slow work, but she does it with a whistle and a slight bounce in her step, digging out a spot for a campfire and everything.

Astrid wrinkles her nose good-naturedly at Ash. "Let's not even let him think he's King." Then Astrid is heading off through the sand toward Marius to help with the tent that she has no idea how to set up, but knows it came with instructions. "Construction is a good fit for you, Ree. Ash and I can much more easily setup lawn chairs and drink lemonade and watch you work that way." She'd throw Runa in there, but no way Runa actually would want to watch Marius get all sweaty in the sun. Gross? Then she rolls her eyes, and with a huff, begins to help Marius get the damn tent up.

It takes them twenty minutes.

At ten minutes, His Majesty bellows -- a little quietly -- "Where's my mead," followed by a laugh. Marius starts without bothering with the instructions, and only has to slow down about halfway through to listen to Astrid tell him how a couple of pieces are actually supposed to go. "Just you and Ash? I'm counting on you bringing more friends than that. How else am I supposed to make the big bucks?" There's a pause in his tent-construction work, and he looks over to Ash, "They make tear-away toolbelts, right?" But eventually the monster of a tent is up, and he heads over to get the pony keg out of the car, hefting the ninety pounds easily enough. It's set in a place of honor and carefully tapped -- ahh, the skills you learn in college. Then it's mugs and drinking horns and other containers for all, and Marius lifts up his horn in toast, "To midsummer. Friends, family, and living a life to be proud of!"

There is no mead. Ash has, however, started a fire, and has set up chairs, and seems to have gotten distracted by something, so that when the question of tear-away toolbelts is asked she glances over, "Oh, there is tear-away everything." She agrees, lifting both of her hands upwards, thumbs up, then she drops her hands back down again so that she can drift off again until they are both done. Then she accepts her mug, hopping to her feet to lift it upwards, "To midsummer friends, and family and....a life you're only half proud of!"

Astrid plops down on one of the logs rolled up to the fire, and she swirls around her mug of mead. She smiles to Ash with a little nudge of her shoulder. "Don't we know it." About the tear-aways-- and whatever that means. Then she takes an innocent sip of her mead after the toast, joining in with the chorus of glee. She sets her arms across her knees, mug held between her fingers. Then she sighs out a breath, but it doesn't seem to be a sad or tired sigh-- just a little escape of breath. She glances toward Ash. "Only half? I'm in the good half, right?"

Marius side-eyes Ash and Astrid about the commentary on tear-away clothing, but shakes it off, quaffing from his horn of ale, because if you have a horn of ale, you have to quaff from it. He steps forward, settling onto a log between Ash and Astrid, because of course that's the best place to sit and won't get him glared at at all. "I think that Ash means she wants to be utterly embarrassed about half of it, because that means she had a whole lot of fun." He arches a brow to her, "Yeah? You really want half of your life to be awesome parties and things you aren't proud of?" Looking around the little circle, he considers that, then nods, "Okay. I can see that. I might be shooting for more like two-thirds proud though. Because I'm an old fuddy-duddy."

And where has Jens been? Fuck if anyone knows. He said he'd meet them here. Maybe he just didn't want to set up the tent.

But here he comes, barefoot in the sand, shoes dangling off his fingers. "Oh hi." He beams a little bit and then drops down in front of the other three. He has a bag in his other hand. He shakes it a bit. "I got marshmallows and chocolate and crackers." S'mores. Someone make a fire.

"Of course you're part of the best half, Ast." Ash replies, taking a long swallow from her drink before she scrambles over to Astrid, throwing her arms around her before pressing a kiss against her cheek, "You're the best half." She then gets up, her hands held out in front of her, "Speaking of...I've got...." She never finishes that thought because she turns to head for her bag, digging around in it before she pulls out a little bluetooth speaker that she sets up, synching her phone to it so that they have music.

The song? Love My Harder. It's really just the start of a really long playlist, honestly. But once the music is going she heads towards Astrid, "Come dance with me while they make with the fire and s'mores."

Runa shows up too, probably in Jens' wake. She is toting a few bags, and has a big floppy summer hat on. "No one is getting melanoma today," she announces, retrieving industrial sized bottles of spray sunscreen from her stash. Ever helpful, she offers to spritz Ash and Astrid first so they can go revel in the dance. But everyone is getting a sunscreen turn. EVERYONE. Even if she has to tackle them down.

Jens doesn't fight it. He knows better. He just takes his shirt off and lets his sister spray him down to protect him from the evil sun god's rays. "You want s'mores, Roo?" He looks up and smiles. "We're gonna make a bonefire."

"You guys are talking like we've lived most of our lives already. There's like at least another eighty years ahead of us." Deep. Then Astrid is being hauled up to her feet, and she laughs brightly before she steps up to Ash and curls an arm around her shoulders briefly. Then she releases and bounces about the sand, dancing with her friend with a lot of enthusiasm that will only get more so as the mead keeps getting poured. She spots the assault of sunscreen, and shoves Ash toward Runa for her turn. Astrid is already a pale tan, so she really will be fine and leaves the sunscreen to all the obvious ones first. Runa will probably spray down Astrid at some point because she wouldn't want Runa to feel unwanted. After all-- melanoma is serious business.

But...dancing! Being shoved in Runa's direction for the sunscreen means that Ash's dancing is briefly paused, but as soon as she's protected she grabs for Runa, "Let them build the fire, come dance." And then she's trying to pull the smallest among them out towards the impromptu dancefloor. Which is really nothing more than a small expanse of sand between fire and tent. "Soon as the fire is built....S'MORES!"

Runa turns her head away while she douses Jens with sunscreen. "Cover your eyes," she advises him, before spraying liberally. She looks away so she doesn't choke on the spritz thrown her way by the beachy breeze. Luckily for Astrid and Ash, she is a lot more careful and even tries to lightly cover the parts in their hair to avoid scalp burn. It's a bitch, y'all. "Hell yes I want a s'more," is her immediate response for her brother, along with a hungry look in her eyes. All the leftover marshmallows will be hers before the day is done. There is no reluctance as Ash tugs her along for the dance party. She gets right into the groove of it, headbobbing and using all the moves she picked up at various clubs during her brief music tour to nowhere. "Best summer."

Meanwhile, Jens has bullied (re: harangued) Marius into helping him with the bonfire. He came prepared! He has rocks, to make a circle, and wood for the fire, and, of course, a can of lighter fluid because he's a lazy mother fucker. Yes. Sure. The Andersson siblings probably know how to build a normal bonfire without the help of dangerous chemicals. But knowing how, and not taking shortcuts are two very different things.

The good news is that this dance party is not at all about grace and beauty but about pretty much cutting up a lot of sand. Astrid gets into it, bouncing gleefully around the two girls with some more comfortable leaning up against Runa and Ash in turn. She is leaning her head toward Runa and Ash as she whispers to them in something easily conspiratorial. Her eyes glance toward Jens and Marius, which means there's bound to be trouble.

Marius has no problems getting sunscreened -- suns out, guns out, shirt goes away -- and helping with the fire. His head bounces with the music as he works, then stands back, watching Jens liberally apply lighter fluid to the wood, "A little more, just to be," not "safe." And then he takes the can and steps way, way back, "Fire in the hole!" He watches the women dance for a moment, draining off the rest of his horn of mead (handy to be able to jab the base into the sand to keep it upright), as he waits for the fireball that will mark the life of the bonfire, edging around the flame zone toward the sandy dance floor.

The dancing continues while they build the fire, but as soon as the call goes out that there is fire in the hole Ash stops dancing, and with a smack on the ass for both her dancing companions she moves towards the bonfire and the danger zone like she were part moth. Or she just wants to move her drink out of the way of the potential blast radius, "I made sure to pack something for dinner that wasn't chocolate, or mead. I'll throw it on the fire in a little while if people want."

Jens is in charge of lighting this shit. He pulls out a strip of matches, lights one, and then uses that to light the entire thing. he takes a few steps back, and then just... tosses it into the pile of wood and lighter fluid. As soon as the matches come close enough, it's FWOOSH and up into the air, lighting up the night. "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

The bonfire goes up, and Astrid is turning to watch it ignite-- only to get her butt smacked! "Ash!" Then she's laughing, and she cheers, lifting her mug of mead appropriately before she hooks an arm lovingly around Ash's waist and Runa's shoulders with a bright beam. "I like fire," she admits to Ash with a little nuzzle, and then she joins in the advance toward the fire until she is swinging up to Jens to give his cheek a smooch and then to Marius to do the same. "Firestarters." She says this affectionately before she turns to the tent. "I'm going to get changed." She passes Marius off her mug of mead. "Then I'll be your sous chef, Ash."

"WOOOOOO!" Marius agrees with his brother. The smack of a good butt-swatting draws Marius's attention back over to the women, and he grins, leaning over to give Jens a nudge. He's just about to collect his horn again when he gets a kiss on the cheek and a mug of mead from Astrid, "You shouldn't have!" No, really, if you wanted some left, you shouldn't have. He brushes a hand at her back as she heads for the tent, drains off a measure of mead, then looks back to Ash, "I've got brats in the cooler too. And bagels for the morning. So we should be good." As long as meat and carbs are okay for food. "So we should do something that lasts here. Something we'll remember for the rest of our lives. One of those cheesy teen movie promises or something."

Jens considers his brother. "Fine, we can kill someone. But if that fucker comes back with a hook for a hand looking to kill us all, I'm tossing you at him first."

"You and your sexy French chef terms." Ash calls after Astrid, then she turns her attention to more slowly consuming her own drink before she gives Marius a look, "I brought salad." She probably did, but that is probably not what she meant she was going to throw on the fire soon. She then moves to throw her arms around the boy's shoulders, which is a feat even as tall as she is, "We're not killing anyone, but what sort of thing did you have in mind, Marius? Confessions of love? Drunken escapades? Carving our names in trees?"

Marius probably should have had an idea on hand when he suggested the thought in the first place. Instead, he gives Jens a shove, "Fuck you too, Jennie." But he's laughing when he says it, even before the horrified look he throws at Ash silences the laughter, "Salad?" He sounds stricken, only recovering when she slings an arm over his shoulder, considering, "I... I've got no idea. I don't know. We're already housemates and family," even if they come from three different families. "All I can think of is..." he glances to Jens over Ash's head, grinning brightly, "Up, up!" His arm tightens around her back, and his other hand comes down to try to grab up one of her legs to snag her into a carry between the two brothers, "To the water!"

Runa squeezes Astrid before she heads to the tent to change. She shuffles off to scoop up something to drink for herself, fingers curled protectively around her mug. "I gotta veto murder as a bonding experience," she holds a hand up and shakes her head a little. "I'm all for drunken escapades," she seems totally on board with Ash's idea. "No drowning either!" she calls out merrily.

Jens furrows his brow at being called Jennie. He might actually have some vengeance cooking but then Marius distracts him with horrible ideas like grabbing Ash and throwing her in the water. He sidles over and snags her other side, lifting up and starting to sprint hwer towards the waves. "Better let your phone go." If she even has it on her. It might be with the bluetooth speaker, playing the music.

The phone is, in fact, still with the speaker. So when they scoop up Ash the only thing that is getting ruined is her clothes, which she only puts up a mild protest for the whole thing, which is pretty well ruined by the fact that she's laughing, "I'm going to get you both back for this!!"

Phone. Right. That would have been a good idea. Oh well, Jens is on it. Marius links hands with Jens under Ash's legs, sprint-stumbling up the dune, down the other side to the beach and then down to the water, it might earn him an elbow or foot somewhere unpleasant, but his plan is to run down calf-deep into the water and give Ash the heave-ho. Now, checking this plan with Jens ahead of time might have been a good idea. But no, he's too busy laughing and calling back, "Get us back for what? We're just making sure you go swimming! Before you really start drinking. Total public health and safety concern."

Astrid bounces out of the tent in her bathing suit-- a one piece that is a combo rash-guard and high-thigh bottoms-- just in time to see-- "Hey!" The brunette is watching the heave-ho, and then scowling. "Betrayal! Treachery! You are both going to regret that." But she makes no actual move to revenge her friend now. Oh no. There's two of them. She's just as easy a target. She is grinning toward Runa. "They won't go after you. You're family."

"More like I've served my time over my whole. life," Runa leans toward Astrid, her voice low. "And they know I'm practiced enough to slip away before they can get me. Grace versus brawn." She's just gonna hang out over here and keep on sippin'.

Well planned or not, Ash ends up in the water. When she resurfaces she catches her hair, pushing it back from her face before she makes a lunge for the nearest of the two brothers to try and shove them into the water.

Jens is already skipping his way back to the friggin' bonfire by the time Ash surface. He even pulls the back of his trunks down a little to moon her as he ambles off, pulling them back up nearer to the fire and grabbing a horn for some mead. Mmm. Mead. "This one time we were at a pool and Runa was in her nice clothes because she had some school function that day and was waiting for our dad to drive her and I came up behind her to give her a surprise congratulations hug and she freaked out and fell into the pool all by herself." Yep. That's exactly how it happened.

Marius should not have waited to gloat over Ash going in the water, and he certainly shouldn't have turned back to the celebrants to call out, "Careful Astrid, you talk like that, you're going in t -- " and then he cuts off because he's a) seeing Jens's butt when he moons Ash, and b) getting shoved down into the surf, "Augh!" He splashes, he flails, he lands in the waves and the wet sand, and then he echoes Astrid, "Betrayal! Treachery! We dumped you in fair and square!"

Astrid casts Runa a wide smile before she narrows her eyes at the dorks in the surf-- okay, Ash and the dorks in the surf. Then she waves to them with big sweeping arms, "Ash! Quick! To me! I'm SAFETY!" Then she laughs at Jens's recount of the memory that is not at all true, but she's grinning broadly to Runa.

"Stay down!" It's a rather triumphant call as Marius goes down, then Ash is scrambling for the shore. Astrid is safety, and she's running full tilt in that direction as soon as her feet are on solidish ground. "My loooooooove, save me!"

Pushing himself back up to his feet, his jeans and boots now completely soaked and sandy, Marius sputters, but then goes pounding up the beach after Ash, sand flying up behind his slogging steps. "I'm going to get you!" Except he doesn't just run for Ash. Instead he totally ignores her once he reaches the huddle of girls, looking to scoop up Astrid instead and throw her over his shoulder, "You may be safety, but you're not safe!"

Runa's taking a phone call and Jens is having some mead. He watches as Marius approaches Astrid and then takes a step further away. Nope. He already dunked one girl and has risked itching powder in his shorts in the middle of the night, he doesn't need to dunk the second one and ensure it. "Dude, they're gonna kick your ass," he tells Marius. "I'm pretty sure Astrid could do it all her own." There's a reason they pick on Ash when it comes to physical pranks, after all.

Astrid is prepared to swoop around Ash to offer her protection from the Vikings, but then there's a Marius coming at her. She squeaks and twists so that Ash can flee to hide behind something else before she is snagged up by the bigger Anderrson boy. "Marius! Marius! You're so going to regret this." And probably sooner than later. She reaches down, stretching for his trunks. She grabs them and then pulls sharply up to give the dude a wedgie. She's ruthless, too. There is no surrender! He dunks her, she's probably going to drag him down to the water with her. Take no survivors!

When Astrid moves, Ash moves, she dives past her, but then comes to a soggy stop. "Oh no!" She is no where near as good at any of this stuff as the rest of them, probably couldn't fight her way out of a wet paper bag, but when Marius goes for Astrid, she turns to Jens, and takes a whole few seconds to think about her life choices. But then she makes a run for him, trying to jump onto his back.

There are other reasons that Marius usually picks on Ash when it comes to physical pranks too. This time, however, he does not get thrown painfully or bodily onto the sand, but instead is rushing back down toward the water. He gets about halfway there before he bellows in surprise and discomfort, his rush becoming a hopping, twisting full-body grimace, "Ow, ow, ow!" Jeans don't make for good wedgie-material, but boxers certainly do. And Astrid's wedgie is ruthless enough that he can almost taste the cotton. "AUGH! Roooooo... avenge me!" He hops, he staggers, he calls to Jens, "I'd be okay if she was just kicking my ass..." and then he goes straight into the waves, up to his waist, and then topples over sideways to try and dunk himself and Astrid at the same time.

"Mar, I'm decidedly on Team Kickass Women," Runa tells Marius with a blithe smile. "I'm prettttty sure this is just to even out the score. You'll be okay!" She hops in and out of her phone call, making disgruntled noises at someone on the other end. "What do you mean you didn't send it in?!"

Ash is barreling towards him and Jens isn't stupid, he sees her. He's just drinking his mead. He guzzle-guzzle-guzzles it and just as Ash is almost upon him he tosses the horn aside and turns around to catch her, so that when he goes down with her on top of him, he's at least not completely taken by surprise. That shit hurts even when you're not a linebacker. He lands on his side and then scrambles to try to grab Ash's wrists. "RUNA. YOU TRAITOR." Well, depends. Family or gender?

Poor Jens. Poor Ash? It's hard to say which one of them actually is losing this battle, because he didn't run, and she's got him on the ground. But this probably wasn't exactly what she was aiming for, judging by the highly surprised look that crosses over her face. But then she twists to the side, flailing her arms in an effort to evade Jens' grip, "Wait..no no...this wasn't the way it was supposed to go! Help! Astrid! Help! Runa! Help!"

"I go down, you go down!" It's managed before Astrid and Marius go SPLASH into the waves. She releases the poor Viking boy, swimming out several strokes before she pops above the surface of the water with a gleeful laugh. She mermaid kicks at Marius the moment he appears, giving him a face-full of water. Then she's disappearing back under the water like a mysterious fish. Beware... beware... This does mean she misses Ash's cries for help.

Well, that's decided that. When it's usually Jarius vs Ashtrid, Runa often gets to be the deciding vote, and now Marius finds himself outnumbered and underwater. Splashing back to the surface, he reaches a hand out to Astrid, flashing her a grin that gets immediately soaked by the splash from Astrid. Sputtering, he swipes his hand over his face, spitting out salty water and grinning again,. He looks up to the beach again, bellowing, "Traitor! I'm surrounded by traitors!" I mean, it's only to be expected, but that doesn't stop Marius from making a big deal about it. Being a fool at times, he reaches back to where he thinks Astrid is with one hand again, looking to the beach and reaching down to clear his wedgie with his other hand, "My mouth tastes like seaweed now! I need more mead!" He's going to get his. Clearly.

Meanwhile, Jens is being the absolute worst. He rolls around with Ash in the sand for a few moments and then he manages to get up on her back, pinning her stomach to the sand, and he grabs a handful of beach sand and lifts the back of her pants up so he can just stuff stand down there, before rising up and sprinting towards the mead. Oh man, this isn't going to end well. "Runa. Save me." She won't.

There is now sand in her pants. Ash lays there, like maybe if she doesn't move it won't gravitate to places that no one, and we all mean no one wants to have sand. It doesn't work, and so she very slowly, very carefully gets to her feet. Wet still, covered in sand and now complete with it down her pants. She starts to unbutton her jeans, carefully peeling them down, dropping them into the sand to try and remove some of it from uncomfortable places. Ash is totally calm. Totally calm.