L @oftheforesttown - Tumblr Blog

Hi! Can you do a fic about them going to the beach? The long car ride, Mari and Shauna fighting in the back seat and having to be separated, Gen throwing up on herself and them having to pull over and clean up, Mel having an accident, Jackie who won’t stop singing and pointing out everything they see, Van getting overstimulated with all the noise while driving so she and Tai switch, which makes Gens carsickness worse since Van is the much better driver, Van having to sit next to Gen to make sure if she throws up she gets it into a bag, and having to separate Mari and Shauna since Shauna is in a biting mood and Mari is in a nudging mood. Lottie sleeping peacefully the entire time. Then (this could be a part 2 maybe?) they finally get to the beach. Van is feeling younger by then. Tai and Nat is struggling to put sunscreen on Van and Mel since they both want to run into the ocean right away. Baby Lottie eating sand. Mari and Shauna chasing each other. Mel and Van picking up sand crabs to throw on Jackie who freaks out. Jackie refusing to leave the towel bc the sand feeling is yucky for her.

Thanks— love,

🐨🐨

Life's A Beach - Pt. 1

Summary: As requested above! The girls head out on a trip to the beach and find that the ride there isn't quite as smooth as they might have liked. Thanks for the request, I hope you enjoy!

"Okay!" Van clapped her hands to get everyone's attention, standing just outside the driver's seat door. "We packed the towels, food, and toys in the other car. Does everybody have everything else that they need?"

She got a chorus of nods and agreements, and she gave the car one last survey before getting in. Gen, Mel, and Jackie were crammed together in the way back, while Shauna sat squished between Mari and Lottie in the middle row. Tai was in the passenger seat and everyone else was in a different car. Van glanced over her shoulder at Nat and Laura Lee, who sat with smug smiles on their face in the decidedly less-chaotic vehicle. Akilah waved cheerfully at Van from the backseat and she forced a smile in return, slightly jealous. Nat flashed her a thumbs up and she sighed, climbing finally into the driver's seat.

"Off we get," she murmured to Tai, who chuckled as she slid a CD into the player. Protests rose from the back of the car when they realized Tai was playing her music and not the pop-punk that had been the recent favorite of both Mari and Shauna.

"If you guys can behave," Tai said, turning to look at the middle row of girls, "then we can switch the music."

"Mari's already nudging me!" Shauna cried, glaring at the offending party out of the corner of her eye. To no one's surprise, they had been at odds all morning, starting when Mari came downstairs wearing what was supposedly Shauna's hoodie over her swimsuit.

"Am not," Mari retorted, pretending to be very interested in the scenery passing by as they pulled out of their neighborhood. She was still wearing the hoodie and Tai had no idea how she'd gotten away with that, considering she had taken a peek at the tag during breakfast and found a little S.S. written in marker there, meaning that it was definitely Shauna's.

"Girls, please," Van piped up, squinting at the GPS. Normally, she would have Tai direct her, but they'd picked up the navigational device after an incident resulting in their car map being torn to bits. Gen had forked over half the price alongside Mel, both of them very embarassed that their argument over whether the squiggles meant rivers or roads had ended in their map being unusable.

"Right. Towards my side," Tai said after Van lingered a little too long at the stop sign, staring at the L's she'd made with her fingers confusedly. She'd explained to Tai dozens of times that doing that never worked because they both looked like L's when she did that, but they hadn't quite figured out a better system yet.

She eased the car out onto the main road, wincing when Jackie started talking excitedly about the cows that she knew were coming up down the road. There was something that Jackie found extremely thrilling about passing by pretty much anything on any drive. She had boundless joy for cool statues sitting in people's lawns or neat neon signs hung up above storefronts, which was admittedly adorable and Van liked more when the car was a little less packed.

To her surprise, they managed to get a whole twenty minutes of relative peace before any issues cropped up. Mel and Jackie had been having an animated conversation about horses the whole time, but their chatter was slowly being overtaken by the sound of Mari and Shauna grumbling at each other.

"Hey," Tai commented, turning in her seat again to face the rest of the car. "Do I need to separate you two?"

Shauna wrinkled her nose, backing away from Mari a little. "No. I don't want to sit in the back with Gen. She'll barf on me."

Mari faked a gag, slumping against the window. "Well, I don't want to sit back there either."

"Then I need you both to cool it," Tai said sternly. She leaned up a little further to peer into the way back, trying to get a glimpse of Gen's face. "Gen, sweetie, you feeling okay?"

Gen looked up and nodded, but her smile was a little wobbly. Tai raised an eyebrow but Gen just raised a thumbs up insistently. She hadn't been allowed to bring anything to do in the car, because she'd historically been unable to keep herself from reading and making herself sicker.

"Let us know if you start feeling sick, okay? It's no worries if you do," Tai called, raising her voice to be heard over Mel and Jackie's animated conversation. They had evidently realized they were going to be going over a bridge soon, which they both seemed to think was just about the coolest thing since sliced bread. Tai had no idea how the noise in the car hadn't woken Lottie, who'd dozed off pretty much the second she'd been buckled into her seat. She had her favored teddy gripped tight against her chest, the ear wet from where she'd been chewing on it.

She turned back to the front, noting the way Van was white-knuckling the wheel, jaw working as she gnawed at the inside of her cheek.

"Are you—"

"I'm good," Van replied quickly, eyes flitting over to the GPS and back to the road again. Her cheeks flushed a little. "Can you—uh—tell me what that says?"

"You're gonna merge up here when the sign with the blue badge on it comes up," Tai said gently, "and then keep in the middle lane until we get off the bridge."

Van nodded slowly, mouth moving as she silently repeated the instructions to herself. Tai decided to run through it all one more time, just to be sure.

"Does anyone need to stop before we get on the bridge? Once we pass the next exit, it'll be a little over a half an hour before we can stop again," Van asked loudly once they'd clarified where she was going, directing the question at the back of the car.

"Speak now or forever hold your peace," Tai joked, turning again to see if anyone needed to. No one spoke up or raised their hand, so she nodded firmly. "Alright then."

They slowed into traffic as they came up on the bridge and the noise in the car picked back up again. Mari and Shauna had decided that they were bored again and were engaged in a game that seemed to involve a little too much pinching for Tai's liking. Mel had gone quiet in the backseat, but Jackie was still talking about the bridge, wondering aloud how the boats could get under and did it break in half in the middle to let them through? What would happen if it broke in half while they were on it?

Tai bit back a curse as she realized what Mel's sudden silence might mean and she glanced at the GPS to gauge how long they had left on the bridge.

"Not too much longer here, kiddos," she said loudly. It wasn't entirely true, but she was hoping she might somehow make the flow of traffic go a little faster if she hoped hard enough. They'd brought along a few extra sets of swimsuits just in case, but stopping right off the bridge was always a bit of a hassle with all the traffic.

"Ow, Tai, Mari keeps pinching me!" Shauna whined, hitting a loose fist out at Mari's shoulder.

"Don't hit," Tai replied, shifting her attention back to the middle row of seats. "Weren't you both pinching each other?"

Shauna looked away sheepishly as Mari grinned triumphantly.

"Yeah," she mumbled.

"So stop," Tai instructed, turning to face front once more. Her neck was getting a little sore from all the twisting and turning. She let out a relieved breath as she realized that they were nearly off the bridge, just a few more minutes until they could be on the open road again. The volume in the car hadn't decreased at all, so Tai turned up her music a little bit in order to be able to hear it, missing the way it made Van's eye twitch.

"Asshole," Van muttered as a truck cut them off abruptly, forcing her to slam on the breaks. The jolting of the car had made everyone go mostly quiet, until Mari shouted something out that made Tai wince.

"Mel wet herself!"'

She whipped around. "Ah, jeez, Mari."

In the back, Mel had already broken out into silent tears, covering her face in a way that confirmed Mari was, in fact, telling the truth.

"Mel, sweetie, it's okay," Tai called. Van was already scanning ahead for the nearest gas station to pull off at. "We're almost off the bridge."

Jackie had switched from talking about the bridge to trying to calm Mel down, launching into a story about the stray kitty she and Shauna had run into the day before. It caught Shauna's attention and she turned to add her bit of the story, but Mari started fiddling with the window lever and she was immediately distracted, turning back to scold Mari for messing with the car. The hum of chatter in the car rose again as Mari and Shauna bickered, which Tai ignored in favor of trying to calm Mel down from the front.

It was nearly another ten minutes before Van was able to swing the car into a gas station and the girls poured out of the car, slumping obediently onto a curb as Tai climbed over a still-passed-out Lottie into the backseat with a towel and Van led still-crying Mel into the bathroom with a backpack of clean clothes.

"I told her not to have two cups of juice at breakfast," Mari muttered once they were out of earshot.

"Ease up on the commentary, please," Tai called from inside the car and Mari blushed, obviously not having expected her to hear. She kicked out at the pavement, catching a pebble on the toe of her shoe and sending it skittering at Shauna.

"Mari!" Shauna cried, rubbing her leg.

"It didn't even hit you," she groaned.

Gen had her head between her knees, taking in long breaths and exhaling carefully, but it went unnoticed as Mari and Shauna started arguing again. Tai clambered out of the car, tying shut a plastic bag with the towel in it as she did.

"Guys, knock it off," she instructed, trying to herd them back into the car. "Van and Mel are on their way back and we are not going to tease, okay?"

When the aforementioned two rounded the building, Mel's face was still red from crying, tucked under Van's arm as they walked. She was wearing a pair of Mari's sweatpants, which the other girl opened her mouth to protest before Tai shot her a look and she clamped it shut, slumping against her seat in annoyance. Van helped Mel back into the car, murmuring something to her with a kiss on the temple, before getting back in her own seat. She sat with her hands on the wheel for a long moment, taking deep breaths.

"Are we good?" She directed the question at Tai, who nodded tiredly, and they pulled out of the gas station. "Nat and them are a bit ahead of us, but we're still making alright time."

Which, they were, until Van accidentally made two wrong turns. She made a frustrated sound when she realized, wincing as a shriek came from the backseat. She didn't bother turning to see who it was, squinting at the GPS as she tried to figure out where she'd gone wrong. Her vision was a little blurry, eyes welling up traitorously in her frustration.

"I can't read the—" she cut herself off, voice cracking as a car blew by them honking.

"You can turn around in that lot there," Tai said gently, reaching across the dash to put a hand on Van's knee. She could feel tension radiating out of the redhead's body. "It's okay."

She kept an eye on Van as they continued on, a little worried about the way her teeth were dug into her bottom lip. They managed to make it another twenty minutes in the right direction without any trouble before the car suddenly exploded into noise again and Tai whipped around to see what possibly could have caused such a ruckus. Shauna was already looking at her in wide-eyed panic.

"Gen threw up!"

Tai bit back an expletive. Gen was hunched over in the backseat, while Mel and Jackie were crammed up against one side of the car to get away from the mess.

"Fuck," Van swore, wrenching the car into a nearby parking lot, which was mostly empty. Shauna hollered something about bad words that went ignored by everyone as they came to a crooked stop. Van threw the car into park, dropping her forehead against the wheel.

"Okay, everyone out!" Tai ordered, unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Lottie's not getting out," Mari pointed out.

"Lottie's sleeping," Tai shot back, tilting one of the middle seats forward so she could help Gen out of the car. Her clothes were mostly ruined, but she hadn't gotten much on the car itself, which Tai counted as a small victory. "Van, do we have—"

"More clothes in the trunk, yeah," Van replied tightly, smoothing a hand soothingly over Gen's hair as she passed. Tai tried to ignore the noise of the other girls as she wiped at Gen's tears, murmuring softly, scanning their surroundings for somewhere that she could get changed.

"Do you want to take her over to the building there?" She asked when Van returned with the backpack. "There should be bathrooms."

"Yeah. C'mon, sweetie," Van said, offering a hand to Gen, who took it with a sniffle. As they walked away, Tai turned back to the rest of the girls and was met immediately with a teary Mari.

"Shauna bit me!"

"She started it," Shauna cried, running up to Tai as well.

Tai pinched the bridge of her nose. "Shauna, get in the passenger seat.

"Why does she get to sit there?" Mari whined, rubbing at her arm where Shauna had presumably lashed out with her teeth.

"Because," Tai replied tiredly. She didn't really have an answer. "I said so. Mar, you'll stay in the middle and Jackie, honey, you'll move up to sit with her and Lot, okay? You can watch over her to make sure she has a good nap."

Jackie nodded eagerly, always excited to help watch over Lottie especially. "'Kay!"

"What about Van?" Mel asked timidly. She looked mostly recovered from her little incident earlier, but she was still chewing at the end of her braid anxiously. Tai wound an arm around her shoulders.

"She'll sit with you and Gen in the back," she explained. "I think she needs a little break from driving."

"You're an awful driver," Mari whined and Tai snorted.

"You wanna drive, Mar?"

It got her to quiet, ducking her head sheepishly as she climbed back into the car behind Jackie. Gen and Van returned soon after and Tai pulled Van aside to explain the new arrangements in the car. Van was chewing on her thumbnail, which usually meant she was near slipping, but Tai didn't think she could handle the group alone and fought the urge to pull Van into a hug.

"We have some extra bags and I figured it would be easier to have you hold one for Gen since she's not always been the best with, er, aiming," Tai said.

Van nodded. "'Kay."

"You good?"

She clamped her eyes shut for a long moment, pulling her thumb away from her face as she tried to collect herself. "Yes. Yeah, sorry. We're almost there. Let's just see if we can go without any more, uh, events."

Tai chuckled, nodding. "You can say that again."

"We're almost—"

"Figure of speech, hon," Tai said with a small smile, handing her a blue bag with a plastic ring around the top. They'd invested in right proper sick bags after one too many shopping bags had ended up having unexpected holes in the bottoms. "Hop in."

Van wormed her way into the backseat, buckling in between Mel and Gen. Mel immediately cozied up against her side, resting her head against one shoulder sleepily. Gen flushed a deep shade of pink when she realized why Van was back there with them, but the redhead was quick to reassure.

"It's okay, honey," she murmured. "It's no one's fault. It's just a little easier this way, okay?"

Gen nodded, sniffling fiercely as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. She pulled her knees up to her chest and Van hummed sympathetically, putting an arm around her shoulders as she used the other hand to hold the bag a little ways away from Gen. Not right up against her face, but near enough that she could get there in time if Gen started getting sick again.

"Last leg!" Tai called cheerfully as she gunned it out of the parking lot. Gen winced as they whipped around a turn, pressing a hand up against her forehead. Tai was a bit more reckless behind the wheel than Van was, much more prone to sharp turns and sudden lane changes and that never really sat well with Gen's stomach.

The car was a bit calmer with Mari and Shauna separated, even if Jackie was still going on about her stray cats, which she directed up at Shauna, who nodded along easily, adding a detail in here and there. Mari kept kicking out at the back of Shauna's seat, but the other girl didn't seem to noice, as enraptured by Jackie's story as she was. Mel was warm against Van's side and she realized her eyes were drooping a little. She shook her head to keep alert, bringing the bag a little closer to Gen when the car went over a bump.

"Fifteen minutes," Tai announced after a while, gaining a weak cheer from the car.

Van was getting hopeful that they would reach the beach without her having to hold the bag while Gen got sick, but her hopes were dashed when they rocketed over a hill and Gen clapped a hand over her mouth urgently.

"It's okay," Van told her, bringing the bag up to her mouth. "Don't worry about it."

She tried not to look when she heard Gen start to heave, tuning out the disgusted cry that came from Mari.

"Calm down," Tai instructed from the front, sounding a little less than calm herself. "Everything okay back there?"

"Peachy," Van grunted, tensing as they went over another bump.

Gen was crying again, but she calmed much quicker than last time when she realized she hadn't made a mess at all. Van opted not to tie the bag off and just focus on keeping it steady until they got to the parking lot where she could hand it off to Tai, just in case Gen needed to be sick again.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Tai maneuvered the car through a set of metal gates, flashing a day pass at the clerk at the stand. A real cheer went up as they crunched over gravel into a parking spot right by the sand and the girls started unbuckling before the car had even come to a full stop. Tai didn't even try scolding them for it.

"Finally" She whooped, seemingly just as excited as they were. "Beach day here we come!"

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