fandomhigh | Beach Play - Tuesday

The sun was shining and it was a perfect day for what Marshall had wanted to teach.

"Some people say that tanning is bad for you. Okay, they're kind of right. There's the danger of skin cancer and sunburn and sometimes you get really sweaty and gross. But there's nothing like laying out in the sun and relaxing and getting a nice tan. The sun feels good on your skin and the vitamin D is good for you or something," Marshall said. He probably should have wiki'd that or something. "And, you know, people just look better when they are tan. Correction--when they have a nice tan. Some people take it too far and turn orange. Nobody likes that. Some people can't tan."

English people.

"They burn instead. Which is why I'm insisting that you all put on sunblock today. And, for the love of god, if you feel yourself start to burn lay under one of the umbrellas I've got set out today," Marshall said, pointing to them. "So, yeah. That's what we're doing today. Lay out on towels and tan. Fall asleep and tan, talk and tan, play in the sand and tan, go in the water and tan. Whatever."

This really was the easiest class ever.

"Oh, and I brought a cooler along with soda and juice and stuff in it," Marshall said, nudging his foot at the cooler beside him. "Feel free to help yourselves."

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"Merlin, if your hair always covered them, no one would call you Ears," Francine pointed out logically, crouching to spread out her blanket and then flopping down on it.

"..." Okay, she had him there. "They do sometimes!"

No they don't.

"Do you want them to go red and stay that way and have people think you're constantly embarrassed about something?" she asked, giggling.

"They'd be too terrified," Merlin said, going for haughty and managing mostly trying not to laugh. "I'm great and powerful wizard, you know."

"They'd be too terrified to think about your ears?"

[Roomie mocks me because originally there was an r in front of ears.

"They might."

"If you could read their minds, maybe." Francine paused in unscrewing the cap from her lotion. "...Can you read minds?" Oh good Lord flaaaail, if he'd ever heard some of the idiotic things in her head.

"Not to my knowledge," Merlin assured her. He held out his hand to help with the lotion.

Francine handed over the bottle and scooted a bit closer, tugging her hair over one shoulder. "I guess Emmett and Chuck wouldn't get away with playing so many tricks on you if you could," she said, only taking the time to think it through now.

"Exactly." Squirting some on his hand, Merlin started to work it over her back. Not at all thinking about--Thursday. At all.

Really.

Yeeeeah, neither was Francine. Because being half-naked in the warm sun with your boyfriend's hands all over you is in no way reminiscent of anything that happened on Thursday that they still hadn't talked about.

"...I think that might be a good thing."

Also the fact that they had the Relationship Talk before having the Sex Talk was in no way indicative of the fact that they were both teenage girls and thus Francine was already way less straight than she believed she was.

Merlin was very manly! Really!

Oh, shut up.

"You're--" Oh look, focused on that back there. "The swimsuit looks nice."

Nice save.

"Thanks. It's the one from the cruise. Well, one of them." Great save! "I'm what?" Or not.

"You're welcome to come by if you wanted to borrow a shirt again." Smoooooth. "If you wanted."

"They don't really fi--" Francine stopped, then looked quizzically over her shoulder at him. Very slowly. "...............Was that a come-on?"

She had to check. Compared to, say, Fred Femur or Chuck, on rather opposite ends of the scale, it actually was subtle.

"...it may have been," Merlin admitted sheepishly.

Francine tried very, very hard not to laugh.

Very hard.

Really really really very really hard.

Merlin waited patiently for her to stop, ears going red despite his best efforts.

At least it was that silent, shoulders-shaking kind of trying-not-to-laugh? Which, okay, was a bad combination with the outfit she was wearing. But.

At least she twisted around and wiped at her face, which was trying to compete with Merlin's ears and giving them a good run. "I," she said slowly, "Would love to borrow a shirt from you again. The, uh. Shirt-borrowing was the one good thing about last week."

"Really?" Oh, sound more pathetic there.

Ahahaha so much for eye contact. "It was a pretty amazing shirt."

"I thought so too."

"Possibly next time we should bolt the furniture down, though."

Merlin just turned red and nodded. "I'll... work on that not happening next time."

By the time this class was over, Marshall would think neither of them had put on any sunscreen. "It's not like I noticed while it was happening. I just meant so your room doesn't get trashed."