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This was, Malcolm thought, officially a Fucking Terrible Idea.
Firstly, it was hot. Unearthly hot, the heat of a godless land and/or Virginia in the dead of summer, where they had gone for some worthless fucking convention on arms and military power and how to equip governments to do all sorts of shit that was the exact opposite of what Malcolm had, thousands of years ago in his fevered, impassioned youth—the exact opposite of what he’d wanted his government to do.
Secondly, there was an ocean. And not a cold, unforgiving, barren and wild ocean—no, it was an ocean full of happy families cheering and sweating and probably pissing. It was, at least, green and choppy. It was a mildly ugly ocean, relatively unphotogenic as far as beaches went, so he kept that fact close to him and took some solace from it. Still. There was an ocean. He was going nowhere near it.
Third, there was Jamie, standing beside him in shorts and sandals and nothing else, shirt in a flimsy cinch backpack. Jamie was braving the sun in spite of being nearly as pale and nearly as endangered as Malcolm, having slathered the nastiest sunblock he could find on his skin. And Jamie was eyeing him in his rolled-halfway-up-the-calves khakis, deck shoes (that already had sand in them, that was hateful point number four), and formerly crisp white shirt that sagging in the humidity and heat. “You look like a streak of cum shipwrecked on a deserted island,” Jamie said.
“I can’t wait to see how red you get,” Malcolm said. “Do you get red? Or do you just skip that bit and combust?”
Jamie began to strut towards the water, down the creaky wooden steps heading to the beach. “I was bred in the fires of hell, this is nothing to me.”
Malcolm grinned at him. “You’re dying out here.”
“Yes, I am,” Jamie said. He turned back to Malcolm with a vicious look on his face. “It’s hotter than my balls when I’m teabagging you in a fucking sauna—” and at that, some tourists began scurrying away from the two of them, which was basically the only positive Malcolm had seen all week—“so I’m getting into the water, I’m going to cool off, and if you feel like deep frying yourself in your own sweat then be my guest.”
Malcolm watched him stalk away, then followed, laughing as Jamie began mincing across what looked to be burning hot sands. His own shoes might have been ill-suited for the beach, but at least he wasn’t wearing the cheapest, most inadequate flip flops known to man. “Wish you would teabag me in a sauna,” he said, largely to see more tourists scatter.
That stopped his tiny psycopath in his tracks. “Oh, you do? Right.”
Before Malcolm could register what was happening, Jamie grabbed him by his shirt collar—he really should have ditched the shirt, except it did help with the sun, didn’t it, especially with the sunblock he was wearing along with it—and dragged him along. His shouting for help was useless, as everyone had already decided the two of them should be avoided at all costs, he lost a shoe somewhere in the sand and oh god it was hot. The sand was hot. He tried to hop backwards on the foot that still had a shoe and managed to lose that one as well, stumbling further into Jamie’s mad embrace as he pulled and pulled and pulled them to the water until there was thick wet sand between his toes and water kicking up his shins to the rolled cuffs of his slacks. “Jamie, Jamie please don’t-”
Jamie was undeterred. Into the water Malcolm went, half toppling in the surf with Jamie’s hands still on him, laughing in spite of how terrible and stupid and disgusting all of this was because Jamie was laughing with him. He still had that dumb backpack on him and he said, “Don’t worry, brought you a change of clothes in a waterproof bag. Saw some restrooms not far from here”
Malcolm sputtered saltwater out of his mouth and asked, “You actually thought of that?”
He puffed up proudly, or he puffed up as much as a skinny little shit like him could actually puff up. “I’m smarter than I look.”
Soaking wet—though, thank goodness, he’d worn swimming trunks under the khakis, so at least he wouldn’t be locked up for public indecency—cooled off for the moment, and trying to keep his balance in the churning surf by holding on to Jamie’s shoulders, he nodded. “That’s not saying much, on a good day you look like a particularly stupid Yorkshire terrier.”
Jamie grinned, shrugged Malcolm’s hands off him, and gave him a good shove.