(Untitled)

[somethingcruel]

Johnny was down on the beach again, lured by the white sand and blue water - a far cry from the dismal holidays of his youth, when his mum and whatever arsehole she happened to be dating at the time would drag him and his brother off to the seashore. He would dispiritedly try to build sandcastles while his mum and her man went off to the pub and

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[all_happening]

Penny hadn't been to the beach since the fiasco with the Jeff Bebe lookalike, but the weather was nice and she had nothing better to do, so she wrapped up her Polaroid in a big tee-shirt before making her barefooted way down the shore, sand between her toes instantly and she didn't care. She was equipped with reading material this time, too, her Rolling Stone that she'd brought from home and knew nearly backwards and forwards by now.

What she saw made her smile, a crooked sort of grin spreading across her face, and called out from a few feet away. "You better be careful," she warned. "There's people here who'd knock that over for no reason."

[...I messed up HTML before. D:]

[somethingcruel]

Christ, the beach was crawling with good-looking young blondes today. He really needed to come down here more often.

"The only thing more fuckin' sadistic than knocking someone's scoop of ice-cream off the cone," he proclaimed, "is knocking over someone's sandcastle. You might as well just piss on their fuckin' grave."

[all_happening]

"Exactly," Penny said, grateful to have someone who saw it her way, for once, and nearing closer, knelt in the sand, not worrying about the short skirt of her little black dress. "That's what I tried to say. Called him a dick." She let out a dry laugh. "Apparently that only made him want to wreck it more."

[somethingcruel]

"So was this an unprovoked attack?" Johnny asked, dragging on his cigarette. "Or was it an act of revenge?"

[all_happening]

Absently playing with some sand, Penny breathed in the cigarette smoke and smiled faintly before shaking her head. "It was...complicated," she said, in an attempt at explanation. "He looked - sounded - acted like someone I knew back home, who I had perfectly good reason to be upset with. And he didn't deny it, he just let me go right on saying what I'd be saying to that guy. And then he kicked over my sandcastle." She shrugged. It was blunt, she'd obviously given it a lot of thought, and however long it had been, she was not about to get over it.

[somethingcruel]

"Well, he sounds like a twat, and you should've kicked him in the balls," Johnny said firmly. "D'you want to help me with this? It might help you deal with the trauma."

[all_happening]

It was a good answer, in Penny's opinion, and she nodded. "I really should've," she said, beginning to pile some sand. "And that sounds like an excellent idea."

[somethingcruel]

"It needs a moat," Johnny explained. "Otherwise the marauding sand-Visigoths will be able to invade the castle and rape all the sheep. You're going to get your frock sandy, love." She wasn't exactly dressed in beach-going attire.

[all_happening]

Penny raised an eyebrow, but she laughed, and dug her hand in to begin scraping away at the place for the moat. "Well, we definitely don't want any sheep raping, and especially not by the marauding sand-Visigoths," she said, head tilted to one side and she was serious. Almost. She shrugged. "And I can always just wash it later. No big deal."

[somethingcruel]

Johnny was silent for a moment, concentrating on digging out the moat. Then he tilted his head, noticing the copy of Rolling Stone she'd laid aside. "Rubbish magazine," he said. "Bunch of bloody old hippies. Though I suppose it was better back in the 1970's or whenever." It looked like an old edition, though in oddly good condition.

[all_happening]

Penny was nearly offended, just for a moment, but it passed at the mention of the decade and a wry smirk came across her face. "I'm from 1973," she said bluntly, biting back amusement. "I bought that the day I showed up here." Twice as expensive in the airport, but worth it for William's cover story. Definitely worth it.

[somethingcruel]

"I used to like all that classic rock stuff," Johnny said. "Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones and all of that." He glanced at the picture on the magazine cover. "Dunno who that is, though."

[all_happening]

Penny laughed. "It's hardly classic when I come from," she reminded him, scraping away some more sand. "They're a band called Stillwater. Great guys. Zeppelin and the Stones are...the best, though." Yeah, and the best in bed, too. After Russell.

[somethingcruel]

"The Stones are a fuckin' joke now," Johnny said. "Mick Jagger's fifty years old and prancing about in tight trousers like a daft fucking idiot, and Keith Richards is a walking corpse. They still tour, though."

He tossed a handful of sand aside, and noticed that one of the top towers was starting to crumble. "Bloody hell," he muttered, trying to stave off the inevitable collapse.

[all_happening]

"Somehow, I have no trouble imagining that," Penny laughed. Though it wasn't particularly nice to think of the person you lost your virginity to as a 'walking corpse.' "But they're still around, then?" she asked, head tilting curiously as she attempted to help hold up the falling tower.

[somethingcruel]

"Oh yeah, unfortunately. At least the Beatles had the fucking grace to break up when their time was up. Did you know that John Lennon died? Some daft bugger shot him in 1980."

The tower finally gave up the ghost, despite their efforts, and collapsed into the moat. "I think we're fucked, love. The sand-Visigoths will be at our doorstep in no time."