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chapter twelve: tiny animals

a/n:

this is kinda stolen from one of the original drafts of the D2 scripts LMAO

TW-- A SCENE DEPICTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT TOWARD THE END.

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When Rory thinks of beaches, she thinks of white sand and clear, cerulean waters. She thinks of Lake Como and Monaco, and the cliffs of Santorini. And, while Venice Beach definitely pales in comparison to all of those places, she finds that it's so much more when a little girl comes bounding down the boardwalk to demand that the only girls on Team USA sign her art book.

It took them a while to get here. After a scramble to get their stuff together and purchase any extra amenities from the hotel shop, it took Rory another twenty-something minutes to manipulate their bus driver into taking them this far away from the premises without a Hendrix-approved adult. But, by God's good grace (and the fifty-dollar bill that slowly slid across a table in the direction of a man who was eating a sandwich), they did manage to get there while the sun was high in the sky. Their spot is in a perfect place, slightly removed from the commotion of the boardwalk and far enough from the water that Connie can spread out the king-sized sheet she stole from somewhere in the hotel.

(When pressed about it, the brunette simply pleads the fifth.)

"Hey, everybody say cheese!"

Julie's met with groans and mild complaints as the flash of her camera goes off. None of them were prepared-- more than half of them in the middle of shedding their cover clothes, and Goldberg looking in the opposite direction-- but Rory, who'd been talking to the blonde when she pulled the handheld machine from the depths of her bag.

"You've got to stop doing that." Kenny says, exasperated. "You're becoming the paparazzi."

Rory snorts a laugh as Julie tells the figure skater to, kindly, go fuck himself.

"Say, Julie?" Rory grabs the hem of her shirt and pauses her sentence to pull it off in one fluid motion. "When you get those developed, do you think you could get me copies? I want some for my wall."

Whilst Julie grins widely and nods her head, the rest of the team begins to coo at and mock her playfully. Dean even loops an arm around her shoulders and hugs her, talking to her in some honeyed voice he'd use with a baby, until she elbows him in the stomach hard enough to make him grunt.

She doesn't respond to their taunts, but her face and neck glow red with embarrassment.

It remains as they're forced to move on and figure out how to keep the sheet from flying away.

Putting her sunglasses on top of her head and pulling her hair out of her face, Rory dips into her bag to search for one of the two or three bottles of sunscreen she brought with her. The choice of a Baywatch red bikini was a bold one (inspired by the enthusiastic urging from Connie and the way that Julie just kept saying how nice she looked) and, even if she still has her shorts on, she can already feel the sun starting to burn her skin.

That, and the lingering eyes.

In her peripheral vision, Guy shoves Averman. She pretends like she doesn't hear him jokingly tell the redhead to stop drooling.

"Wait!" The few people who were drifting to the water stop to turn to her. Rubbing the lotion into her bicep, she gestures weakly with the bottle. "Sunscreen!"

Luis, Jesse, and Dean all exchange an amused glance and then set their gazes on her.

"Just 'cause you're less likely to get a sunburn doesn't mean you can't get skin cancer."

Ignoring the fact that she definitely sounds like her mother, she stands there in her bikini top and looks at them with her big, pretty eyes until one of them inevitably cracks.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Jesse mumbles.

He takes it from her, half-heartedly rolling his eyes and muttering to himself when she smiles sweetly at him. Averman waddles up, the sand hot beneath his feet, and steals her attention just seconds later.

"Les, sweetheart, you're reflective. You need sunscreen."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." He waves a dismissive hand. "Can you get my back?"

Rory nods and takes the bottle back from Jesse when he's done. As he dots his face with it, she coats his back with a decent layer of sunscreen, frowning when he gets goosebumps.

"Sorry. I tried to warm it up in my hand."

(That isn't why he has goosebumps.)

When she's done, she leans forward and kisses his cheek. He thanks her, and then, as red as his hair, grins at her as he starts to run toward the water.

Backward.

"Please don't fall!-- Oh, man, he's going to fall."

Les does, indeed, fall.

She pinches the bridge of her nose as he hits the ground and sighs as he, to the tune of his teammates' laughter, pops right back up to shout I'm okay!

"So, if I ask you for help with sunscreen, do I also get a kiss?" Luis' question comes with a playful smirk and more snickering.

Tilting her head, she wipes the excess lotion still on her hands across his chest.

"There you go. Is that good enough?"

He scoffs half-heartedly, his nose scrunching with the beginnings of a smile, and Kenny laughs behind him.

"What are you laughing at, short stack?"

"You."

Kenny dodges out of the way when Luis swipes at him and then starts running. Luis, playfully, chases him, and she has to look away when he inevitably closes the distance and tackles the smaller boy to the sand.

"C'mon." Connie says, grabbing her boyfriend by the arm and dragging him down the beach before he can say another word.

He doesn't look too bothered by it, though, because he's grinning ear to ear.

"I don't understand them." Julie huffs from her spot, sitting on the sheet with her legs crossed underneath her.

"Nobody does." Fulton shrugs and then nudges Rory on the arm with his knuckles. "Are you coming in?"

She looks up at him and gnaws on the inside of her cheek. "I don't know."

"Seriously?"

"What? It's-- It's ocean water. From LA. It's got microbial stuff, and fish poop, and sharks--"

"Is this a rich person thing or a nervous person thing?"

"..I have a bruise on my hip."

Fulton, with his hands on his hips, sighs. It's not one of those sighs that say he's genuinely frustrated with her, just the mild sort of thing that tells her he's definitely growing weary of this conversation.

"You also have a bruise on your face."

"Gee, Fulton," Julie squints up at the two of them, shielding her eyes with her hands, "you really know how to talk to women."

"What? If she can go outside with a bruise on her face, she can deal with a bruised hip--"

"Look, just go enjoy yourself. I'll be okay over here!"

Rory could explain to him that, very suddenly, she finds herself uncomfortable with her own body. With how much attention she's already gotten just from taking her shirt off, she's not sure that she wants to take her shorts off, too. Not with girls like Connie and Julie, who are just not nearly as lanky and lithe as she is, around.

Her hip bones jut out against her skin and she isn't sure she wants anyone to see it.

Especially not Averman.

But she doesn't. She doesn't say anything. He'd just tell her that she was crazy, and she might be, and she'd be embarrassed all over again.

"You're not going in unless I make you, are you?"

That catches her off guard. She cocks an eyebrow.

"Make me?"

"Yeah."

"How would you make me?"

For the second time, Fulton lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "Like this."

And then, like some knockoff Creature of the Black Lagoon, he lifts her right off her feet and starts to carry her, bridal style, toward the water. Rory yelps his name and flails before she wraps her arms around his neck to find purchase.

Distantly, she can hear more laughter.

"Can I at least take my shorts off before you throw me into the water, you barbarian?"

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Rory humors her team for about half an hour before getting back onto dry land.

Relatively dry and wearing her shorts again, she tasks herself with combing the beach by their spot for little bits and bobs. Dwayne is sitting behind her and molding the wet sand (that Julie has been begrudgingly buckets of water for) into the beginnings of a sandcastle. He's anxiously awaiting stones and shells she promised would embellish his work.

Crouched down to pluck what looks like a tiny vertebra from the floor, she pauses to watch a crab scuttle away from her. "Hey, cowboy?"

"Yeah, Rory?"

"Have you ever wondered how we look to small animals?"

"Huh?"

"Small animals." She repeats herself, looking at him over her shoulder. "Do you ever wonder how we look to them?"

Dwayne stops to think about it. His eyebrows pinch together and he frowns, slightly. "Well, I reckon we're pretty darn terrifying, don't you?"

Rory shrugs. She doesn't know.

She drops the bone into Dwayne's loaned ten-gallon with the rest of the trinkets and stands, wiping her hands on her shorts.

When she turns to him, he's looking at her.

"I mean," He continues as she joins him and sits on the other side of the castle, his hat in hand, "I think big animals are scary. Back on the ranch, my daddy had this big ol' breeding bull. Must've weighed a ton and a half, and been nearly six feet tall."

Rory casts him a glance as she sorts through their collection.

The members of their team tend to be too harsh with Dwayne, writing him off as odd and a little... dumb. She doesn't want to be like that, though. She wants to be good.

Besides, his stories, while long and tangential, are fascinating.

And Dwayne is incomprehensibly kind to her, so why wouldn't she return the gesture?

"It used to bang against the fence all night and make all this ruckus when it came spring, and it used to scare the wits out of me. I reckon it's a little like that."

Rory hums pensively. "I guess you're right. I went whale watching, once, and I got so startled I cried."

"Whale watching? What's that like?"

"It's... pretty boring until it isn't. Whales are big."

"How big?"

"Way bigger than your dad's old bull."

The corners of his lips twitch up into a smile.

"Anyway," She presents his hat out to him, "I have combed the sand to find the finest shells, stones, and sea glass for your castle."

He takes it back and looks into it. "Sea glass? What's that?"

"It's glass that we've thrown into the ocean. Over time it breaks down and becomes like little colorful pebbles."

"Huh," He looks up from the contents of the hat, "that's pretty neat, Rory. Thank you very much."

"It was my pleasure, really." The little vertebra sits safely tucked into the shallow recess of her side pocket.

As she helps him, Rory discovers that she's not great when it comes to building sandcastles.

She chalks it up to the fact that she wasn't allowed to play in messy things when she was younger just so she doesn't have to come face to face with the idea of failure, but Dwayne doesn't mind. He says it's alright because he isn't very great, either, and she's good at a lot of things that he can't do-- like chess. She offers to teach him how to play. He says he might take her up on that offer.

They're interrupted by the approach of Luis, Kenny, Guy, and Charlie just as she places a piece of shell on top of it.

"Hey, we're gonna go get some ice cream. You kids want to come?"

Dwayne declines, his tongue jutting out as he concentrates on his work. Rory sticks hers out at Guy for his, albeit playfully, condescending remark.

"Well?"

"Sure," She says eventually, standing up and brushing the sand from her body, "I'll pay."

Luis grins. "I like this whole being friends with a rich kid thing."

"Hey, Lester!" She calls out to the ocean.

The redhead stops shoving Goldberg's head under the water for a second. "Yeah?"

"We're getting ice cream! Want some?"

"No, I'm good!"

"Alright!"

Rory grabs her Team USA sweater before they leave, shrugging it on and leaving it unzipped. Kenny and Luis walk a few paces in front of them, bickering about something, and Charlie slings an arm over Rory's shoulders.

"So, you and Averman, huh?"

Skin flushing, she nods, "Yeah... I think so."

"You think so?" Guy snorts. "Jesse said he saw you guys cuddling this morning. I think it's a bit more solid than you're letting on."

"Well, I don't know. What if he doesn't actually like me all that much? What if we don't go any further and it was all for naught? I'm simply being cautious."

Guy tilts his head as Charlie pulls her closer to say, "Has anybody ever told you that you're too cautious?"

She looks at the ground.

Yes. Yes, they have.

"Yeah. I mean, I don't get it, because he's Averman and he's gross, but he's definitely into you."

"Besides, why wouldn't he be?" Charlie asks. "You're cool."

"I think I'm pretty weird, actually."

"So what?"

Rory looks at Charlie, uncertain.

"It's not like any of us are normal." Guy tacks on. "Charlie and Banks never shut up about hockey, and I'm pretty sure Portman's a convicted felon."

That makes her laugh, though she does remind him to be nice just a moment later.

"Hey, guys," Luis' wary voice grabs their attention. "That that who I think it is?"

About fifteen feet to their left, a squad of the Iceland Vikings play soccer in the sand, Olaf Sanderson and Gunnar Stahl with them. Her blood pressure spikes at the sight of them and she sucks a sharp breath through her teeth.

"Yeah." She swallows nervously. "Uh, maybe they had the day off, too? Maybe they're just here to have fun."

Rory knows she's being naive, and she knows the boys know that, too, because they pull in tighter around her and try to keep a decent distance from their adversaries.

A little further down the boardwalk is a little ice cream store with a sun-bleached awning and bar stools in front of it. They order their stuff across a counter and she, true to her word, pays for them.

"Hey, guys, I'm going to look at the bathroom over there and I guess use it if it's not too bad." She points over her shoulder with her thumb. "If my stuff comes, hold it for me?"

They give her various nods and Kenny even salutes her. They wait for her to come back, engrossed in conversation.

She doesn't come back, though.

Rory doesn't even get very far from them before she's stopped.

"Hello." Olaf Sanderson grins unsettlingly as his friends close in around her.

"Hi."

Anxiousness squirms in her gut as she forces herself to look up at the mountainous blond instead of glancing between him and the rest of them.

Where had Stahl gone? What was he up to?

Where are her friends when she needs them?

Very suddenly, she feels like an animal. Like a crab scuttling across the hot sand.

"Fancy meeting you here, no?"

"Yeah," Her voice betrays her and wavers, "I didn't think you guys would leave the hotel... Does it even get hotter than sixty degrees in Iceland?"

Scattered laughter. Goosebumps dance across her skin and she pulls her hoodie closed around her body.

"Sometimes." Olaf crosses his arms over his chest. "On the east side of Island."

She tries to swallow past the lump in her throat and nods. "Makes sense..."

Rory becomes too aware of the person behind her before she feels the hand that reaches out to brush the back of her thigh. Instinctively, she grabs the person by the wrist and whips around to face him.

"What the hell are you--"

"Sorry." Gunnar's face makes her voice catch in her throat. "You had something on you."

"I, uh, I think I'm going to go now. I hope you guys enjoy your day."

Gunnar grabs her wrist before she can get away and pulls her back to the middle. "Where are you going?"

"Let me go." She tries to wrench her arm from his grip and shoves at his chest. "Let me go."

"What? Are you afraid?"

Rory doesn't respond to that. Like a rabbit in a snare, she just frantically continues to try and escape.

"Y'know, for an American pig, you're very pretty. Even with this."

He cups her jaw and brushes his thumb along her bottom lip. She immediately swings for his face. Her hand makes contact and he drops her so she, as fast as her body will allow, makes a run for it.

Not paying attention, she collides with a hard body, but the person catches her before she falls.

She squirms right out of their arms. "Don't touch me!"

"Hey," Dean's concerned face comes into focus. He puts his hands up immediately and takes a step back, "what's wrong?"

The boys are with him. Fulton, too. They wear matching looks of concern.

"I just-- I want to go, okay? I want to go back to the rest. I want to get as far away from those Nordic pricks as possible."

(She wants her dad. She wants to go to him and curl into his side and be loved. Even if nothing happened. Even if he'd just tell her to get over it.)

"What?"

"They were just-- I want to go. Please?"

"No." Dean scoffs, squinting over her head. "They don't get to get away with this."

"Dean. Dean. You don't even know what they did!"

He stalks off in the direction of the Vikings, Fulton at his heel. Kenny very hesitantly rubs her back.

"We're going to have to run in a second, aren't we?" Charlie doesn't tear his eyes off the scene unfolding before them.

"Yeah." Rory says, her heart still hammering against her ribs and her gut still churning. "I think we are."

On cue, Dean punches Gunnar Stahl in the face. His body whips to the side and he falls, and the Vikings react.

(She'd never admit it, but it satisfies her. He's hurting people to protect her and she likes it.)

The boys turn on their heels, and they all run.

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"Alright, I want you to form a fist." Dean sits sideways in his seat to reach across the aisle of the bus and gently holds her wrist so he can see her hand. "No, no, not like that."

The punch that sent Stahl sprawling got them chased halfway down the beach by both the Vikings and LAPD. By sheer dumb luck, and Luis' ability to run ahead and Connie's ability to pack things quickly, they managed to get on the bus before they could be arrested or beaten to a pulp. The team is buzzing with energy and talking non-stop, Goldberg bitching about the fact that his vacation got cut short and Dwayne just happy that he gets to take home sea glass from LA, but Dean has an agenda.

He wants to teach Rory how to throw a punch.

"Like this." Dean physically moves her fingers into the correct position. "If you don't do it like this, you're gonna break your thumb, alright? Punching people in the face already hurts like a bitch, so we don't want you doing any more damage."

"Okay." She says in a small voice, opening and closing her hand to get used to the feeling.

"Good. Now punch me." He holds up a flat palm.

Rory hits him.

"No. Harder."

She hits him again, harder this time.

"Okay, good. Good. We can work on that."

Rory smiles and thanks him softly. He then turns back to Fulton to have a conversation, and she sits forward, too.

Averman says nothing when she leans her head on his shoulder.

He just holds her hand.

And that might just be more comforting than anything her father could've done for her.

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a/n:

behold! the scene we were robbed of in the first go about this: dean teaching ror how to punch!

not that any of you really respond to these but I wanted you to know that I'm going to be basically giving kenny's 'learning to fight' storyline to rory because he just repeats this storyline in d3, anyway, and she's going to need it for d3.

there's a bit of d3 foreshadowing in this chapter. I will let you decide where it is.

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you