safelyinpieces
Clay’s knee-deep in water before he really even notices he’s out there. Of course, their gear has been long since dropped on the dry part of the beach, but he can’t help himself. It’s early in the morning, the water’s cold, the breeze is soft and he’s out of his mind in excitement. For how close he’s been living to the ocean for the past few months, being too busy to visit the actual damn beach has been driving him absolutely insane.
Of course, that’s probably why Malik finally caved and agreed to a long weekend off in the first place. Their damned Order owed them that much. Clay shucks off his shirt as he makes his way back to the beach and his beloved bureau leader, coming back to do his part and set up their chairs and umbrella in the sand. The surf can wait for now.
“I told you this was a good idea.”
Malik is still in his clothes, setting down the armful of picnic supplies and dropping his little pack into the sand where Clay had abandoned all burden and left him to be one with the sea, a thought which brings a quick little smile to Malik’s lips in amusement. He watches closely, never far away enough from the bureau to forgo protective nature in favor of relaxation; Malik has insisted on layers of sunblock, on said umbrellas and packed lunch and lots of water -- though there are a few cold beers stashed in the ice underneath. Insistence that, perhaps, can be construed as unnecessary.
He has his reasons.
“You did tell me that, yes,” Malik agrees, laying out a towel on the sand for himself as Clay opens the umbrella, “whether or not I agree with the statement remains to be seen.”
The smile, however, lingers there on his lips, patient and content. For all his worries, every wrinkle in his brow carved by stress, the number of thoughts that even now remained with his people back at the bureau, Malik found often that it merely took Clay’s own felicitation to satisfy him at any given turn.
