WINEFEST, AT THE LAKE [OPEN]

[willcabot]

Bare feet padded down the small jetty, clothes abandoned in his wake as he stripped down. Discarding the Breitling watch onto the wooden boards, he grinned as he dropped the final piece of clothing between him and the water onto the short pier before diving straight into the deep, cool, lake waters. Swimming deep down into the darker waters, Will swam down brushing his finger tips along the lake bed before swimming slowly up. There were some advantages to a Siren ancestry, the attraction to the water and his speed in the water was definitely one of them.

Swimming to one of the buoys, far beneath the surface, Will swam the length and bredth of the lake before he reappeared at one of the floating platforms. Swimming slower, deliberately slowly, Will looked like any other morning swimmer. Emerging from the water, he slicked his hair back before grabbing onto the edge of the pier. Muscles straining as he pulled himself up on to the board, grabbing his towel he wrapped it round his waist before grinning as he realised he had himself an audience.

"Morning," Will began, grinning as he mock saluted them. "Nothing better for a hangover than a morning dip, don't you think?"

Comments

[second_son]

There are secrets, and then there are secrets and what he has with Fabrice is definitely the latter. Only James knows for sure about Demetri’s preferences; he knows his other siblings have to suspect but it’s nothing he’s ever confirmed. That he’s involved with a Coombs makes it that much morecomplicated, the sort of secret that would set his father against him in every way possible.

“You shouldn’t be out here. Not with him.”

[lituplikeaghost]

"For real?" June rolls her eyes again. "Literally, Demetri, we were just talking and swimming, that's it."

She's tired of having to explain herself to her older brothers every time she goes out with a guy, especially when it's someone like Will, a friend she's known since her childhood and who would never actually make a move on her. She wants to tell that to Demetri, wants to reassure him that she can take care of herself, she is nineteen, damn it. But she also wants answers of her own, and if Demetri is going to insist on this tough guy act, she'll respond in kind.

"Look, let's have this chat somewhere else, shall we?" June says, marching right over to Fabrice to take him by the arm just as he looks like he's going to walk away. "You both can escort me back to my cabin; no one will say anything, they'll think he's another one of my baubles."

She gives Demetri a pointed look as she keeps Fabrice in place, a look that brokers no refusals.

"You can either continue to cause a scene out here or we could discuss this in private, away from prying eyes. Your choice."

[second_son]

"Fine," he says shortly, his terseness as obvious in his stature as it is in his voice. June has him over a barrel and she knows it as well as he does. If he's going to take her to task then he needs to do it not here, not in public. Demetri looks to Fabrice, wondering if the other man has any idea what he's gotten himself into. "Lead the way, little sister."

[lituplikeaghost]

"Good, I'm glad we can agree," she answers back just as tersely, wanting some answers from her brother, for once. She's so tense, her grip tightens around Fabrice's arm to the point where he winces. "God, I'm sorry," she tells him, before steering them to head towards her cabin. Fabrice looks back at Demetri with a confused, trying-to-roll-with-it expression.

[second_son]

"June, you're being a child." He's accused her of being a just that tonight, but right now it seems unbearable, especially because Fabrice is the one bearing the brunt of it. "Stop acting as if you're twelve and maybe, just maybe, we'll stop treating you like it."

[lituplikeaghost]

"Says the man who threw a fit over my swimming with a friend in the lake," she points out with a healthy dose of eye-rolling. She tugs Fabrice along, gentler than before once she realizes she's hurting him. "We're almost there, anyway."

Fabrice can't help but keep sneaking glances back at Demetri, trying to reassure him with a shrug of his shoulders that he is alright.