#raelinski

“You know, I did hear you the first time you announced that. And also the eight times you’ve said it since then.”

“This kind of weather should be illegal,” Stiles complains, flopping back onto his beach towel. “I’m literally dying.”

“So go in the water,” Theo says. He’s lying out in the full sun, because of course he is. I’m a chimera, Stiles, I don’t get sunburned. I just tan. Asshole. Stiles, on the other hand, is wearing sunscreen and a sunshirt, and he’s sitting in the tiny patch of shade thrown out over the sand by their little rented beach umbrella, and he still suspects he might actively be getting sunburned.

“I can’t yet, my sunscreen hasn’t absorbed yet,” he complains. “It’ll all wash off in the water, and then you’ll have to carry me back to the hotel, because I’ll’ve burned to a crisp and died.”

“Well I don’t have any palm fronds handy, so I can’t exactly fan you too keep you cool, your highness,” Theo says, eyes closed and sounding like he’s about three seconds away from dropping off to sleep. How he can nap under these conditions, Stiles does not know.

“If you were a good boyfriend, you’d go and find me a palm frond,” Stiles grumbles, repositioning himself so he’s sitting more comfortably, and then checking to make sure his knees aren’t poking out the edges of the patch of shade.

“Worlds most palm-frond-less boyfriend, that’s me,” Theo mumbles, and he is. He is fully dropping off to sleep, how. It’s a billion degrees in the shade, how is he lying in the full sun and napping right now. Is he part lizard?? Did the Doctors splice him with kanima DNA afterall and he’s been an ectotherm this whole time and this is the first time in his life he’s had a proper bask and he’s falling asleep from the bliss of it all? Stiles is too uncomfortable to exist right now, let alone sleep, but Theo’s just drifting off as though these are remotely ideal napping conditions.

“You know what we should do?” Stiles says, deliberately loud. If Theo falls asleep then Stiles will die of boredom. He can’t swim right now, so therefore Theo is not allowed to sleep right now. He has to stay awake and keep Stiles company. “It's Christmas, so, we should build a snowman.”

Theo cracks his eyes open enough to send Stiles a what the fuck expression.

“Stiles,” he says. “It’s a hundred and four degrees. What snow.”

“With sand, obviously,” Stiles says, warming to the idea (hah – warming) and clambering to his feet. “It’ll be a sandman. Ooh and we should make snow angels. Sand angels. Whatever they call them here in upsidedown-wrong-weather-land.”

“Or,” Theo says, dragging the word out and not moving an inch. “We could nap.”

“Nope, no napping,” Stiles says, and ventures out of his shady circle to go and poke Theo in the ribs with a sandy foot.

Theo growls lowly and flashes golden eyes in Stiles’ direction.

“That trick might work if you hadn’t worn it out about two months after we started dating,” Stiles says, utterly unfazed by the half-assed intimidation tactic.

“I thought you said you can’t go in the sun yet,” Theo tries, attempting and failing to avoid Stiles’ poking toes without actually moving. “Your sunscreen isn’t absorbed yet, you said.”

“I said I can’t go in the water, cause it’ll all wash off. Theoretically, I’m all clear to venture out into the hellish monstrosity that is the Australian sun at midday, so long as I stay dry for another ten minutes or so.”

“Ugh,” Theo complains, ceding defeat in the face of Stiles’ unrelenting pestering and rolling to his feet – far more gracefully than Stiles managed a few moments ago. “Fine,” he grumbles. “But if you get burned to a crisp, I’m not carrying you back to the hotel.”

“Yes you will,” Stiles says, grinning as he follows Theo out onto an empty patch of sand.

Their attempt at making sandmen goes… rather poorly.

“So, it turns out: sand and snow do not behave the same way,” Stiles announces, as their fifth attempt at building the sandman’s lower sphere collapses into a vague triangle of damp sand yet again.

They’d started off using dry sand, and immediately realised that it wouldn’t work, given that the dry grains refuse to hold to any kind of shape whatsoever. So then they’d tried wet sand, and found it to be too wet, so every attempt since then has been trying – with no luck – to find the happy medium between wet and dry building materials.

“Yeah, I dunno that we’re gonna be able to make a sandman with this,” Theo says, dropping a clump of soggy sand from his palm to land with a splat on their latest failure of a sandman.

“I have seen sandsculpting , I know it’s doable somehow,” Stiles says, tongue between his teeth as he tries to sculpt the pile of sand back into anything vaguely resembling a sphere.

“You know what would work, though,” Theo says, and really, his tone should have tipped Stiles off. The tone should have been a clue, because it’s Theo’s up-to-something tone, but Stiles is too focussed on his pile of sand to realise the danger he’s in until something wet and heavy slaps into his neck.

Stiles squawks in startled outrage as he falls sideways out of his precarious crouch, elbow sinking into the damp sand as he lands in a messy sprawl.

“Snowball fight,” Theo announces, grinning hugely as Stiles stares up at him in appalled betrayal, damp sand dripping from his neck.

“Ohhh, you will pay for that,” Stiles announces, and scrambles gracelessly to his feet, scooping up two handfuls of damp sand as he goes.

The snowball sandclump fight that follows is fierce and brutal and messy, and at the end of it Stiles has sand in places that sand really shouldn’t be, and he has to go into the water to a) cool down, and b) get all the sand off him.

“Let’s call it a tie,” Stiles wheezes as he makes his way into the water. Behind him, Theo snorts.

“It was not a tie,” he announces, following Stiles into the waves.

It absolutely was, and the only reason Stiles doesn’t argue the point is because he’s too busy being distracted by how cold the water is.

“Fuck, it’s freezing,” he yelps, as he gets deep enough that the icy water hits his calves and splashes up over his knees. “This is meant to be warm water, why is it cold.”

“It’s not,” Theo snorts. “You’re just hot.”

“Why thank you,” Stiles says, tossing a grin over his shoulder and catching Theo’s affectionate eyeroll and the entertained curl at the edge of his lips.

“You know that the best way to get in the water is to do it quickly, right?” Theo asks, and that’s all the warning Stiles gets.

“Don’t you da—” he starts to squawk, but it’s too late. Theo goes low, scooping Stiles up around the waist, cutting off his alarmed yell, and hefting him up onto his shoulder for just long enough that he can then throw him from a height into the water.

Stiles’ shriek at the impact of cold, cold water is lost in amongst the flurry of bubbles under the surface.

He comes up spluttering.

“Villain!” he gasps, spitting out salt water and scrambling to his feet to get as much of his body out of the cold water as possible. “Enemy! Betrayer!”

“You’re welcome,” Theo grins, and – you know what the worst part is? Is that it’s not even that cold anymore. Theo was right. Now that Stiles’ body temperature has been forced back down by several degrees, the water isn’t nearly as cold. It’s quite nice, actually. Very nice, even. A very refreshing break from the unrelenting heat of the sun.

Not that Stiles is going to tell Theo that.

“I’ll get you for this,” he promises. “When you least expect it. I’ll sneak into the bathroom while you’re having a shower and I’ll switch the hot tap off, and you’ll squeal, and I’ll laugh.”

“Yeah, sure, cause I won’t hear you when you sneak into the bathroom,” Theo chuckles, sounding indulgent.

Stiles steps forward. Close enough that his dripping-wet chest is pressed flush against Theo’s still stupidly warm skin. The asshole doesn’t even flinch at what has to feel like very cold water droplets against his sun-hot chest.

“Well maybe I’ll distract you, so you don't see it coming,” Stiles says lowly, and leans in to kiss Theo.

Theo hums cheerfully into Stiles’ mouth, and kisses back. Lightly at first, and then more deeply – and that? That’s exactly what Stiles was waiting for.