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Who: Ghoul & Julie
What: Disasterkids checking out some of the new stuff, and one of them being Really Bad at water.
Where: Mainly around Delight's pool atm.
When: ~12/13
Warnings: Nothing weird. Lots of cursing, I'm sure. Various states of undress, because ~~sinking~~ swimming lessons!

While Ghoul may be familiar with desert surroundings, what he's not so familiar with is large bodies of water. Especially the ones here. Many of them he finds hard to trust- they're all weird colors and whatnot, which is usually never a positive sign, but this one looks normal. Boring in comparison, but also probably the safest. It's an assumption that he feels more and more confident about as he creeps his way along the outer rim of the pool. There's weird greenish plant-stuff growing in places, and he even catches a glimpse or two of small fish darting through the water. If things are living in it then it has to be clean, right?

When he stops, it's at the lip of a steep underwater drop-off, where the water is dark and deep. After a long moment of consideration, he lowers himself to the ground. He stretches out on his stomach, sticking his arms over the edge and letting his forearms dangle in the water. It's hot here, okay, and though the water isn't exactly cool, it feels pretty nice. Compared to slowly-baking skin.

He's still in that same position when he sees Julie again, and he grins up at her. "It ain't meltin' my hands off, so that's good."

Um, yeah. That's very good.

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Julie has had much the same thoughts about the water, but she hasn't been quite as suspicious as Ghoul is. She sees him from a distance, creeping his way towards the edge of the pool - one that she was nearing, too, because of the lack of a strange glow around it.

"I don't know if I would have put my hands in first to test something like that," she says wryly as he speaks to her, and she even manages to smile. The Null invasion hadn't been kind to Julie, and she still has the look about her of someone who isn't quite getting enough sleep, but at least she's clean and in clothes that aren't ripped and covered in blood.

She leans over the edge of the pool, stood beside Ghoul's shoulders, to look down into the water.

"The fish could be used to it."

"I didn't do it, like, first thing," he argues with a frown.

Except he kind of did. Sure, he'd waited around until he'd seen proof of life inside the pool, but he's beginning to realize she has a point. Whatever's inside would have adapted. He goes still, taking a moment to stare thoughtfully down in to the pool and appreciate the fact that he still has skin at all, before he releases a huffy breath and jerks one of his hands, flinging a quick little arc of water back at her. "Shut up, it's fine!" ...Probably?

Yeah. Probably fine. "Nothin' feels weird... so. You're welcome. I took a risk for the whole team, it's fuckin' brave." Or stupid.

It's stupid.

She laughs when he splashes her, jumping out of the way of the water. It hits her regardless, of course, and she lets out a strangled sound before dramatically collapsing to the sand beside him, grimacing in mock pain.

"I'm melting..!" she gurgles. "It burns~!"

The dramatics don't last long - she can't keep a straight face against her own humour - and she rolls onto her stomach by the edge of the pool, leaning over to peer into the water. She dips her fingers into it, wiggling them slightly.

"I guess it's better that you didn't just jump right in."

Her strange sounding cry startles him for a moment- long enough for him to wonder if she might be allergic to alien water, and oh shit, if she is he's totally fucked up--

The look on his face when he jerks around to stare at her is probably pretty funny on its own, but all it takes is a glance before he's rolling his eyes and grinning again. "Melt somewhere else, asshole, you're gonna ruin my view." He lifts an arm once she's close enough, briefly pushing at her shoulder with his elbow.

Then his nose crinkles at her observation. "Jump in it? You think I'm dumb? There ain't a bottom."

"Can't you swim?"

Okay, so it might not be the smartest thing to do in the middle of the day, but swimming sure sounds good right now with the heat pounding down on them. She shifts forwards and dangles her arm into the water, a few strands of hair going along with it as she looks down into the pool.

Down... and down...

Wow, there really isn't a bottom.

"No?" That's a weird question. "I don't think I know anybody who can." It's not something that comes up much, but he's pretty sure being unable to swim is fairly normal.

She gives him an odd look. Okay, so it's not that unusual, but it's still pretty weird. What kind of guy his age has no idea of how to swim?

"Yeah, you do. I can swim."

It's fine if she wants to throw around odd looks, because she'll be getting one right back. And really, Ghoul, what is that face. What is that reaction.

"What? Why?" It's like she's just told him the most ridiculous thing in the world... Then a wave of realization washes over him, and he clicks his tongue. She's trying to pull one over on him, isn't she. Well, he's not that damn gullible. "Nah, you thought you were gonna bullshit me. You'd sink."

What is that face? She pulls one right back at him and sits up, scrunching her nose up ever so slightly.

"Why would I sink? I've been able to swim since I was three." It does occur to her that she might sink due to some odd properties of the water, but she definitely isn't going to sink for lack of an ability to keep her head above the surface.

"Why would I lie about that?"

"Three?"

After pulling a soaked arm out of the pool, he rolls on to his side and lets his hand hover a little ways above the sand, marking something that equates to about toddler-height. "Like, this kinda three? This big?" What in the fresh fuck. "Why would somebody throw a baby in water?"

... Is he messing with her? She's honestly not sure, at this point, and she squints at him as if trying to figure out if he's sincere in his line of questioning.

"My mom took me to classes. What the hell kind of place do you come from, anyway?"

"Holy shit, your mom was in on it!" He can only picture two scenarios for this; either she was sent to a class where pools of water were used as some kind of punishment, or this was legitimately a class where babies were thrown in to bodies of water. On purpose. Possibly multiple times. Maybe the last one to sink was the winner.

He's not sure which case is closer to the truth, and he's not sure which one is funnier, but both ideas entertain him enough to cackle.

He turns back over, dipping his arm back in to the water and slowly swishing his hands back and forth under the surface. "That's fuckin' wild. Nobody's gonna waste a buncha good water by tossin' kids in it at my place. That'll get your ass beat."

"Didn't have indoor swimming pools, then."

Julie rolls her eyes. She can see there's only one way she's going to convince him, so she stands up and toes off her shoes, pulling her socks off to tuck them inside. Her shorts come off, along with her t-shirt, then in nothing else but her bra and underwear she takes a short run up to the edge of the pool and--

She jumps straight in.

Indoor swimming pools. Not just a swimming pool, but an indoor one. God, that must've been nice. "I've seen outside ones," he babbles, distracted by his efforts to dig at the water. He's slow to notice her moving away and fiddling around. "But there wasn't nothin' in 'em."

By the time he realizes she's up to something, it's too late. He doesn't even get turned around to look at her before she's whizzing by and flinging herself in to the water, and, of course, Ghoul ends up drenched once she hits the surface. "Motherfucker!" He flails and scrambles up, sitting on his knees and attempting to smear his wet hair out his face with an equally-wet forearm. He's not making a lot of progress there. It would be annoying, but he remembers that she just leapt in to a bottomless watery grave, so he ends up feeling a touch more concerned than mad.

Shit, shit, shit- he smacks the hair out of his eyes and immediately scans the surface for her, hoping that he hasn't gone under, because if she has, then that's the end of it.

The girl doesn't stay under the water for long - just enough to get her bearings and make sure she's right-side up before she starts kicking. She pops up a few metres from the shore, laughing and pushing her hair back out of her face, treading water for a few moments before striking out towards him.

Her fingers close around the edge of the pool seconds later, and she grins at him with the beads of water on her face already drying off in the sun.

"Told you I could swim."

Ghoul scowls down at her, which probably would have come across as more menacing if he hadn't looked like a tangled mop. "You're a dick. I hope somethin' in there eats you."

But nothing does. And she doesn't drop like a rock, even after he warily watches her for a bit... People and rocks aren't exactly made out of the same sort of stuff anyway, so maybe she never would've sank in the first place. Maybe swimming isn't such a big deal after all. "Whatever. I guess I see why you start with babies. Don't look all that hard."

"If something tries to eat me, you're going to have to be the one to get in and rescue me," she points out to him. Nothing emerges from the depths of the water to snap at her feet, however, and she isn't getting any creeping sensation that something will.

Usually, she trusts her instincts on that kind of thing.

Julie pushes away from the shore again and swims a few strokes away, turning to give him a speculative look. "If it doesn't look that hard, why don't you try it?"

"I ain't gonna bail you out of a mess you got your damn self in!"

Okay, that's probably a lie.

He grimaces when she pushes away from the edge, since he's still not quite used to the idea of her floating around so easily no matter what he says, and shrugs. "'Cause. You're already in there. You'll be all in my space." Except it's a huge fucking pool, so that's bunk.

"If you're shy about getting in, you only have to say so."

But Julie has her own ideas about just why he's refusing so quickly, and part of it has to do with the way he's watching her. He looks uncomfortable, and not with her state of undress. Add that to what he said before, and--

"Unless you can't swim. You can't, can you?"

"Shy?" He scoffs. "Shit, please." Shy's not really a word he'd use to describe himself.

But he's not tripping over himself to jump in, either. He stays perched at the edge, slowly leaning closer and closer. He's worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he scans the water, saying, "Course I can. I can fucking do that," in a way that sounds more like he's telling himself instead of her.

The only way to do it is to just... well, do it. After a quick wince he pitches himself forward, flopping ungracefully in to the water, clothes and all, before he has a chance to talk sense in to himself. It goes all right while he still has a bit of forward momentum, but when he slows and tries to straighten himself up to a more vertical position, he begins to realize his mistake. He doesn't actually know how to tread water, which is made obvious by the weird way he tries to climb it- and that aside, all of his many layers are now soaked. The unexpected weight of it pulls him right down, and oh god, if he were capable of thinking right now, he'd be glad no one he knows is around to see this. Because this is it. He's going to die and it's so awkward and stupid.

She doesn't think he's actually going to do it. She definitely doesn't think that he's going to jump in with all of his clothes on. If she had thought that, she would have said something to the tune of wearing too much fabric dragging you down and that he'd sink just like he thought she was going to--

But then he's pitched forwards into the water, and it becomes very clear to Julie that Ghoul has never been out of his depth like this before.

"Oh my God," she sighs, moving towards him and grabbing him by the back of his jacket. It's difficult to haul him up and keep herself up at the same time... they're just lucky he's not too much bigger than she is. "You're supposed to take some of your clothes off first."

Why. Why is this a thing?

With her help, he resurfaces with a round of hacking and spluttering. Her hold on him is likely the only thing keeping him from sinking all over again, because whatever he's doing with his arms sure isn't working and his legs feel understandably very heavy. He might as well be kicking through molasses.

There will be A Lot of curse words whenever he finishes replacing the liquid in his chest with air, but for now, he doesn't even bother trying to answer; he's busy flailing in the direction of one of the rocky edges. Is he even moving?

Probably not. How does water work?

"Ghoul-- Stop flailing around! I'll have to let go!"

She's quite sure, even though he's managed to reorient himself again, that if she lets go of the back of his clothes he's just going to start sinking. Julie resists the urge to slap him to get him to listen to her, and awkwardly moves alongside him as she helps him back to the shore.

Once there, she holds onto the edge with one hand and hauls him up with the other, then lightly taps the back of his head with her fingers.

"That was really stupid."

Stop flailing?! And die??

Bless Julie, really, even if she does want to slap him. Ghoul only stops being obnoxious when he's able to hug on to the edge like a barnacle. He's tense while he hangs there and catches his breath. Her gentle tap startles him; he jerks forward, and with how close he's pasted himself to the rocks, his forehead ends up smacking against one. "Ugh!"

He turns his head towards her so he can glare- he can't exactly see her due to the hair plastered to his face, but he can at least aim in her general direction. "You're really stupid," he wheezes pathetically. "Why would anybody want to do this?!"

"Most people don't decide to jump into a deep pool, fully clothed, when they can't swim!"

Now he's safe, she's smoothly treading water again, moving her arms at her sides and kicking her legs underneath her body. The hot sun has already dried off most of her hair and she's sure she's going to have sunburn later, but these are the things we put up with just to have a little fun.

"You didn't even take off your shoes. Why did you think I got undressed?"

He frowns- which definitely, for sure, looks absolutely nothing like sulking. "I don't know?! 'Cause you felt like it? I don't know your life!"

He's still scowling when he rests his cheek against the shore, somehow managing to make even that look sad and pitiful. Fine, she's right, he should have at least taken off his shoes. But it's a moot point now. He's not letting go of his rocks for anything. He's stuck here. Forever.

It's fine.

"Come on."

You're not that stupid, G, you're not fooling her at all. She pats his back gently, shaking her head and secretly glad he can't see the smile she's trying to fight. For all his terror, it is kind of funny.

"I'll help you get out, then you can do this properly."

"Shit." He groans and moves his head, burying it against the crook of his elbow as he whispers, "I gotta fucking do it again?" to the rocks his face is half-smushed against. Can you believe this shit, rocks?

"Okay, whatever," he says after picking his head up. There's a grim look on his face as he begins to drag himself through the water by pulling along the shoreline, moving at a slow pace until he finds a shallower area and a little nook that he can climb up on to. Once he's safely sat down, he huffs moodily and starts unlacing a boot. He's clearly not in a huge hurry about it, though. "It's not gonna work all the way. I'm still gonna go down."

Well, he doesn't have to do it again, but the fact he isn't actually refusing says more than Julie is going to point out at this moment. Instead, she helps him along to the shallows and then moves back, enjoying the warm water while she waits.

"You won't. Just take off as much as you're comfortable with." Her head dips down into the water for a moment, just enough to hide the curve of a smile while she watches him.

"I promise, I won't let you drown."

It takes a while. That's what he gets for dressing in approximately thirty-seven layers, but the sound of soggy cloth and boots smacking the ground continues steadily. By the time he's done, he's shed all but his underwear- it's not like he has an excess of modesty in the first place, and he also wants to prevent as much drag as possible. His chest still aches from sucking in water the first time.

Even after he slips back in to the water (much more carefully, this time) he's got one hand firmly attached to the rocks, despite the fact that he can touch the bottom of the pool in this area. The water is high, lapping at his collarbone, which is a strange and unnerving feeling. It's mostly fine, though. Anything's better than sinking.

Which he's still a little unclear on how to prevent. "What do you... do? Ain't you more tired from kickin' and flappin' around?" That's what treading water looks like, anyway... A huge waste of energy.

It takes a while, but she's patient and doesn't even watch the whole time. When he's finally done (and those wet clothes will be dry in no time with this sun), she moves closer to him and puts her hand against the rocks a few feet away. Then, she smiles at him.

"The point of treading water is to keep your head above the surface. To survive. It's not meant to be hard, but I guess you're not used to it." He'll be using muscles he's never used before, if he's never swam before (and she believes it), and will probably ache like hell in the morning.

"Move your legs so your feet and your knees are going in circles. And don't flap your arms around, just move them back and forward." The water is so clear, if he looks down he can see what her legs are doing.

He hasn't even considered what sort of aftermath he'll be facing tomorrow. It's going to be hilarious, probably. For now, his mouth twists in to a thoughtful frown, taking a moment to just... watch her. Again, what she's doing looks easy- but he learned his lesson last time. He's more gun-shy about copying her this time, although he does. Kicks off the bottom just slightly, enough to get him floating before trying this out for himself.

It's a whole lot less coordinated than her example, but it's something. He only dips down too far a couple times, but even still, he's putting way too much energy in to it- which, surprisingly, he notices. "But you're goin' so much slower," he splutters out. Hers is slower, smoother, more relaxed.

Maybe he'd get a decent rhythm going if he'd let go of that god damn rock.

"You've never done it before... and you're trying too hard."

She's also been able to do this since she was barely out of diapers, but he's doing much better than the first time he all but fell into the water with all of his clothes on.

There's something nice about this, though. Julie hadn't been sure that he'd trust her enough to believe she wouldn't let him drown, or to even get in the water, yet here he is. She wonders if he'll trust her a little more.

"Let go of the rock. Use both your arms."

Whoaaa. Red light. All motion suddenly stops once she suggests that, and he even turns to grab at the rocks with both hands. He's still looking at her though. Warily. His gaze moves between her and the shore a couple times, and he seems to frown a little bit more with every pass. Letting go sounds like a hideous idea. How is he supposed to yank himself out of the water if he needs to?

But she did promise she wouldn't let him drown... She hauled him back once already, she could probably do it again.

He has to think about it for what seems like forever, but in the end he does finally mumble, "You gotta keep watch." Just in case something goes wrong and he sinks again. As if she hasn't already been doing that.

He might be a little nervous, that's all.

"I will." She got the idea from their first meeting that trusting people wasn't a thing that came naturally to this guy. It's not unusual - some people are like that - but it makes it all the more surprising that he trusts her now, practically putting his life in her hands.

Julie holds her hand out to him, managing to keep treading water quite capably with the other arm.

"Come on. Once you can do this, you can learn to swim properly."

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