Summer kind of snuck up on Tommy. He'd been busy getting himself and Jake settled in their new apartment. Learning to be a father. Teaching at the local school. Now suddenly it was summer. He was teaching music camp, but that was only half a day. He had plenty of time now. Time to spend with Jake.

"What do you want to do, buddy?"

Being only eight months old, Jake just reached for Tommy's finger.

They were a team.

"We're the boys of summer," Tommy said, feeling silly but free at the same time. "We can do anything."

Jake smiled.

Edited at 2012-06-01 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Come on, Jules-- it's a great idea."

Juliana shook her head. Juice's new business idea had quite a few flaws. "First of all--- you'd have to buy the blow up pool and the ducks."

"Already done!" Juice said, with a grin. "Now I just need to fill it."

"Great--- two things though. One-- where will you get that much blood?"

"Uhhhh...." Juice scratched his head.

"And two-- what's to keep it from coagulating?"

"Co-what?"

Juliana sighed. "Blood clots, Juice. It'd get all clotted and nasty between vampires."

"Damn! So much for vampire swimming pools. Back to the drawing board."

Edited at 2012-06-04 07:34 pm (UTC)

I'm reading Jake this book we got from the library.

It's about animals and their homes.

"Ducky lives in the pond," I read. Jake laughs and touches the picture of the duck. "That's right, that's the ducky."

The pig lives in the barn. The bird in the nest.

"But crab is home wherever he goes."

Jake doesn't look like he understands yet. But I point at the hermitcrab's shell. "See that? He carries his house around. It's a little tiny house, and he can live in it anywhere."

Just like any place me and the boy are together is home.

"You need to relax," Charmaine says, and that's all there is to it. Once she's put her foot down, there's no arguing. A picnic basket is packed and the entire office piles into the Corpsemobile for a 'relaxing day in the country, damnit!'

Heck sulks all the way there.

He perks up when the basket is unpacked. Chamaine's made empanadas gallegas from Abuela's recipe. Maybe his sister is right. He takes his top hat off, leans back against a tree. It's just one day. The world won't end while he bites into spicy meaty goodness and recalls his childhood.

Anton brought it home from his office, a cumbersome unit bartered to the doctor for lack of funds. He drops it off midday, with no explanation of purpose.

"What is it?" Gretchen asked, skeptically eying the box-like structured.

Hans reads the English writing on the unit - it has no manual. "I have heard of these," he says. "A room cooler."

"What? What need have we of this? Anton shouldn't let patients trade."

Hans sets it in the window. Turns it on.

As the hot Argentinian summer fades into a cool breeze, Gretchen allows they might keep it a while.

There's a picture of Pete and Tatja together. Sitting in their folk art class, sharing a paint pot. It's a shade Tatja told him was teal. They've got aprons on. Hers is frilly (it smelled like baked goods); his reads Kiss the Chef (she didn't). They're both smiling, their shoulders in comfortable proximity.

"You folks look good," the art teacher said when she snapped it. Tatja'd blushed, Pete'd stammered a thank you. She emailed it to them.

Pete printed, framed, and hung it.

When visiting Tatja's house, he discovers she's done the same.

That's when he knows she likes him too.

"Come swimming with us, Uncle Hans--" In Argentina, always, he says no.

Hans feels strange, weightless in water. Lost in the vastness.

In California, there are beach trips he is invited to.

"Come swimming with us." One excuse or another.

But when Jonas asks, offers they can take a raft, go at night--- what can he do but say yes?

There they float, on a tiny inflatable island under a sea of stars.

Hans dips a hand into the black water, feels the weight of eternity lift if only for a little while.

There are things more infinite than he.

Edited at 2012-06-22 01:03 am (UTC)

Iggy's parents take him and Connie down the shore for the weekend. It's indulgent, while he's got so much work to do - but maybe that's why they take him.

So he can have a rest. Be just their son, just Connie's brother.

They dig for clams on the beach, poke long sticks down into the mud. Iggy's left his weapons at home, left his eyeliner and earrings too. In swimtrunks, his bare feet squishing in the mud - he's just a boy at the beach.

For a weekend, they can play normal.

Dad steams clams. Mom sunbathes. Connie swims.

Iggy smiles.

"Ugh!" Juice spits his drink. It tastes like biting into a lemon rind. Wurst Case Scenario had a few...issues running smoothly. Things were complicated by the fact that the guy they'd hired to run the stand didn't speak much English.

"EIN DRINK," Juice said loudly and carefully, as if that would help Anton understand him. "IS SOUR, KRAUT."

"Nein," Anton said, shaking his head. "Das Getränk wird Limonade."

"SOUR." Juice repeated, making a pucker face.

"Sauer? Bitter, ja?" Anton handed over something that would help. The tin of sugar.

"Dude... this is what we get for not using mix."

"Come on Heck, just try it--" Charmaine urged, holding up the mixture. The color and texture screamed FRUIT in a disturbingly healthy way. She'd concocted the mess in the blender, scraped it off the sides and put it into a glass with a straw plopped into the thick liquid.

"Does it contain any coffee?" Heck asked. Though he already knew the answer, he took the glass.

Charmaine snorted. "Just drink it."

"This looks like something I've been slimed with...." Heck jabbed the viscous concoction with his straw.

"Dr. Merryweather said you need to eat healthier."

Heck sighed, then slurped.

Edited at 2012-07-02 03:43 am (UTC)