Once more unto the beach

Etrius sat on the rocks overlooking the sea. The waves crashed on the shore below him and threw up a light salty ocean mist that blew lightly into his face. It contrasted with the smoke from the cigarette like object that had no odor but a very visible smoke. It was the exact same spot where he had been reminiscing about his previous girlfriend quite a long time ago and had caught sight of his current love interest though sometimes in the middle of the night, he would wonder if it was just a one time thing. He had been shot, for the fourth time that month and though the heavy sniper bullet had not gone through the absurdly thick armoring on his right shoulder, there was still stress fractures that were being mended. Consequently, he had been put on medical leave. . . again.

It was in the exact same spot he was sitting now that he had looked over his shoulder off to the side and saw Danni, standing on the beach looking rather lonely. He chuckled at the thought and wondered what would happen if he looked over in the same direction now. It would be so cliche, like something out of a romance novel or something, though he highly doubted there were many romance novels where both protagonists are highly trained black ops agents and fight monsters. Still.

He looked off to the side just to humor himself.

Danni was back and she felt good, her usual black swimsuit was on. That consisted of a pair of black short swimming shorts and a matching black bikini top that stood out starkly against her white skin. It seemed to make her scars stand out against her muscled skin, a new one coiled over her collarbone like a snake.  Her hair was red again, back to its natural color if anything slightly shorter. Kicking off her flip-flops she hit the waves, feeling the salty sea water splash over her skin. It had been almost a year since she had been here as she had been so busy.

The water seemed to wash away all the aches and the pains of war and loss. Her emotions where almost the exact opposite than when she had been here last. Depression had clouded her mind and she had eventually beaten it with some help. Dragging herself onto the beach, Danni fell backwards, chest rising and falling, and sand sticking to her wet body.

She rolled over and reached for her towel and that was when she made eye contact with a boy who had almost impossibly dark eyes. Etrius. One of the few boys she had been romantically involved with and here he was. Not Dead. Well… that was a first.

“Hello,” Was all Danni said.

Etrius blinked.

Then he blinked again. Wow, there she was.

He smiled as he recognized Danni in the same suit that he had seen her in almost a year ago though she was a fair bit more scarred than she had been before, likely from her work. In his mind he slightly scowled at the fact that he didn't have many scars, mainly because of two reasons, one was good, the other one was annoying.

Most of his old scars had been removed one time when he and Loyd had gotten drunk and Loyd tested out some of the new cosmetic improvement kit he had managed to find off the internet which surprisingly worked rather well. However, other than the one scar he got from when a chunk of Albatross's CIC had blown up in battle had ripped off his arm, he didn't accumulate any others because any time he was injured it was always in the same way, shot in the right shoulder. Admittedly, all of that had been taking down terror cells created to persecute and kill demi-gods but that didn't really help that much since being shot still sucked.

He made eye contact and something in him lit up. He couldn't identify it but it felt really good.

He readjusted the bindings on his shoulder and pulled back on his black jacket. He slid off the rocky outcropping and dropped onto the sandy beach and began strolling over with a deliberate pace until he stood about three meters from his love interest.

"Hey." he responded finally. "Long time no see."

Her mouth curved up into a small smile as she pushed herself up, snagging her towel and rubbing the water and sand off her skin. Bending over slightly she brushed her legs off to look back up and see Etrius standing only a few feet from her. She did however notice the bindings that he adjusted and then hid with a jacket.

Danni arched an eyebrow but assumed it was from his job. Colossus. Probably sending him who knows where to do who knows what.  

“Yeah, I guess long time. A year.” She reached up and ran her fingers through her long red hair, attempting to remove tangles. She would seem the same to him, except a little happier and with more scars. Danni fingered the one on her collar bone and jerked her chin at his shoulder.



“What adventure caused that? Or is that classified?” There was a lilting amused tone in her voice  and Danni watched him, flicking her long hair over her shoulder.

Etrius looked down at the bindings before chuckling a bit. He finished up the medicinal stick before pulling it out of his mouth and flicking it off to the side.

"Oh, it's not that big really. Some guys, they called themselves "Exalt," decided to turn extremist so someone somewhere decided that they needed to be put down. I got shot with a sniper rifle. I'm really glad that I started wearing crazy amounts of armor there but the bullet still kicked like a mule." He explained with an amused smile.

He stepped forward and ran his fingers of his good hand through Danni's hair, feeling the locks with his fingers and brushed a few others out of the way.

"So this is the natural color of your hair. I must say, it looks really good on you." He complimented. Truth be told, Etrius had two fetishes that he secretly kept away from everyone other than Sam who already knew about it from a drunken conversation after a job one time. Red heads, and heterochromia though it was one or the other, not both for some reason.

Sage had a theory that one time before Etrius hadn't depressingly gotten used to being shot, he had been shot by a woman with both red hair and heterochromia. Etrius disproved that theory by stating that almost all of his shooters had been overwhelmingly male, except one "assassin" but she had been blond.

Tossing the blue towel over her shoulder, Danni crossed one arm slightly over the other.

“Good to see your rash need for danger is still afoot.” Danni mused to herself and then she realized his fingers where running through her hair… when did he get that close? She suppressed a shiver that ran down her spine and she watched his hand mover through the wet tangled mass.
Laughing slightly, she stated, “That’s why it’s called natural hair color. It’s generally the hair color that looks best on us.”

Etrius’ eyes seemed to be fixed on her hair as he worked his fingers through it carefully.

“Are you going to eat it or something?” Danni joked quietly.

Etrius turned his attention from her hair to her face and changed his smile into a confident smirk. He then lifted his hand and used his index finger to trace Danni's jawline until he got to her chin and lifted it to meet his eyes. A brief mischievous light flashed through the pupils.

"Oh no. Why would I do that when there are additional options. Many of them much more appetizing." He said softly.

He used his other hand to trace the new scar on Danni's collarbone and followed it to it's terminal point.

"This is new. Have you been getting up to any new adventures lately?"

He asked lightly in a slightly interested tone. It wasn't hard really, he was quite interested since he had not been able to keep an eye on her safety. Oh, he had been able to confirm that she had been alive through his intelligence sources but ever since Jim had been promoted into another department, he had not had much insight into the goings on of Danni's department.

Also the universe seemed to be plotting against him since whenever he decided to make a visit to the FBI building, he would always invariably get himself shot. It was never intentional to be honest, but it was always annoying on top of, you know, being shot, to spend all that time he could have potentially spent checking up on his new girlfriend was being allocated to lying around in a hospital. Those EXALT guys in Italy took half a year of intensive searching for clues, accumulating evidence, and thousands of man hours of doing paperwork as well as actually killing people to hunt down amid interference from other groups but it had gotten done. EXALT was gone and the members of their little terror alliance was either dead or scattered to the winds, mostly the former.

"Or did you get clumsy in the kitchen after receiving news?"

Danni did not like that look on Etrius’ face one bit, the smirk that annoying little smirk.  Then his hands began to move along her jaw line, passing over her pulse that was fluttering wildly underneath his fingertips.

“Other things?” Danni asked, her voice cracking slightly. “You’re not turning into a cannibal are you?” That was a joke but it may have been hard to view as a joke because Etrius was being very… distracting. His other hand was using his fingers to now trace the scar at her collar bone and he had succeeded on raising gooseflesh.

Making an attempt at a laugh she stated, “I’m not that clumsy.”
Etrius was making her very nervous, very nervous. Danni didn’t have pain killers to completely fog up her brain this go around.


“Mission accident shortly after I got out of the hospital. I count myself luckily; some people lost their heads in that explosion.  I was undercover in Spain and it went south.” Danni would have shrugged but she couldn’t bring herself to move…

"A cannibal? No. Human flesh doesn't taste very good. I know, I once had to use my teeth to hold my arm in place while Loyd sewed it back on. It was that shrapnel incident I told you about." Said Etrius nonchalantly. He took a half step in and ended up with his body literally a centimeter from Danni's.

"No. I have already tasted of you. You are quite exquisite." He whispered softly into her ear. "I wonder. Do I taste just as well?"

To be honest, if Etrius would have paid attention to his behavior, he probably would have suspected that Sage had hijacked his brain because he was being a lot more forward than he would normally. When the Freakshow had formed, he had adopted the long suffering mentor sort of role though he quickly disposed of that notion because he stopped being the brotherly mentor when the Freakshow became Colossus.

"In any case. I'm glad you're still safe. I'm glad you're back. I was worried you know?"

[Rome: Italy]

Sage, half naked and with his hands raised in front of his face, froze up and his eyes unfocused for a bit and he frowned. The water nymph, in a similar state of undress, standing over him stopped her assault and looked at him confused for a bit.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, slightly concerned.

Sage dwelled on the sensation for a bit before he shook his head to clear it up. 'What is this feeling?' he wondered. It was unsettling, and he didn't like it.

"N-no. It's fine. I think." He said and forced the concerned frown into an endearing smile.

"Oh." Said the water nymph though she could still detect the frown. "In any case. It's still not excusing you for what you did to me last night." She chirped.

The smile on Sage's face twisted quickly into an expression of comic horror. And the beating continued anew.

"AAAAAAH! DAMNIT WOMAN I ALREADY SAID I WAS SORRY!"

"DIE!"

Practically rooted to the spot, Danni pressed her lips together and swallowed. Etrius was being very forward and his hands had stopped moving, one on the side of her neck and it was covering the side of her neck. Almost cradling her head and she was pretty sure Etrius could feel her pulse fluttering against his hand like a trapped bird.


“I don’t remember that moment was rather foggy.” Zoe stated dryly, turning her face slightly so she could better see what he was doing.

Etrius took a half step back and put his hand on Danni's shoulders, giving her an actual smile.

"I've been worried about you you know." He said softly and pulled her into a hug. "Between frequent hospital visits and hunting down EXALT, I haven't been able to find any time to see you. All I've managed to get out of Jim since he got promoted out is that you were still alive."

It had been slightly nerve wracking, especially when his only news had been vague things like if she was still alive or not. Jim had forwarded him some office gossip that Danni had been injured on a mission at some point and as Etrius's luck would dictate, it had been right after Loyd had pulled a bullet from his shoulder. That set his recovery back by about half a week.

"Still. I'm so glad to see you again."

Danni couldn’t help but let herself fall into the hug, gripping on tight to the back of his shirt.
“I’m glad to see you too,” She finally murmured. “Why wouldn’t Jim say anything about me being alive?”

She was careful to avoid his hurt shoulder; it would seem that bullets enjoyed reducing that area of his flesh to the shape of a cheese grater. Danni could feel the warmth roll of Etrius, she hadn’t even realized she had been shivering.  Resisting the temptation to stay curled up in his arms she pulled away, examining his face while dark red tendrils of hair clung to her cheek and neck.

Etrius chuckled a bit at the memory of Jim's face when he found out he was being promoted.

Normally a promotion would be a good thing but the kind of promotion the faithful FBI agent had received had been a move from being a field agent to an office agent. He would of course occasionally go out and do some field work but for most things not involving armed suspects, he would be sitting in an office getting droned on at by some bureaucrat. Etrius understood this very, very well, after all, that's why he had been a Lieutenant even though he commanded a ship (and occasionally battle fleet), he refused to deal with the paperwork. As one of the co-founders of Colossus, he just made it so that the only people who had any real authority over him were Sam (who was his boss) and Loyd (who for all practical purposes, outranked everyone).

Etrius examined Danni's face when she pulled away, noting her features, how they had changed, and committing them to memory.

"Well. Jim managed to get himself promoted to Liaison between the FBI and congress so I suppose he was too tired and angry to check a lot of his stuff." He said, inwardly taunting Jimmy boy for his misfortune. It was rather full of schadenfreude but hey, a laugh is a laugh.

"Don't worry about the shoulder. It's more just to keep me from doing something stupid and re-breaking it than anything else."
Etrius said after he noted how Danni seemed to be avoiding his shoulder.

“Well isn’t he Mister Popular,” Danni mocked quietly before scrubbing at her forehead with the heel of her hand.  “Glad I’m off his project radar however.”
Etrius noticed her avoiding his wounded shoulder and made a comment about it.


“You look like you have been their personal cheese grater at the rate your shoulder gets hurt,” The red head Italian stated, arching an eyebrow and pulling away completely away and picking up her surf board. 

Cradling it under her arm, Danni hunted for her clothes and her flip-flops.  She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about Etrius being back. Heck, Danni wasn’t sure how she felt about herself being back either. Maybe she would have to work it out as they went along. She still liked him, quite a bit actually. Which Danni had not been expecting but the young Agent didn’t quite know how to deal with it all.

"Jimmy isn't too bad, he's just a bit fretful sometimes." Etrius said as he watched his (girl?)friend as she went about collecting her stuff.

He was still hesitant to call her his girlfriend because really, what had they actually done together? He had pulled her out of the grips of survivor's syndrome and thanked her for unknowingly avenging Etrius's most painful failure. Then immediately afterwards, they dove headfirst into a case with a murderous demi-god in which Danni was severely wounded and Etrius had gone on a blood rage, accompanied Danni to the hospital where she had gone into intensive care, and then promptly bled all over the hospital's nice clean floor. They hadn't really gone on a date yet unless the case counted, probably not, and in all likelihood, a "normal" date would probably bore both of them out of their minds.

"You know, I think I feel a bit more like the cheese than the grater." He remarked.

There was a short buzzing from his right pant pocket, signalling a message from Annie. Apparently it was a forward from Sam, priority Delta which meant not urgent but worth looking in to. He opened the message and in short order, he was trying very hard to not laugh his ass off.

Danni made a noise of amusement at Etrius agreeing to disagree with her, “Why the cheese instead of the grater?”

It was quiet the interesting comparison. But she was pretty sure Etrius wasn’t as squishy as cheese… hmn… That was the moment Etrius started laughing very hard, so hard that his shoulders where shaking. She wondered for a brief moment if it was her cheese grater comment before realizing he was holding his phone.

“What?” Danni asked, her stuff being forgotten on the beach for the time being as she walked up next to him; Her arm brushing his in the process as she looked up at Etrius, trying to figure out what would be causing him to giggle like a teenage girl being flirted with.

Etrius lost his battle to stay under control and started laughing his ass off. His eyes went blurry and he tried to take in air even as it was immediately expended in laughter. He managed to get himself under control just as his (girl?)friend sidled up to him and tried to see what was happening. To answer her question, he showed her what was on the phone.

[From:Sam O'Neil
to: Annie Anne Marie
Fwd to: All Department heads]
[Hey guys! You'll never guess what happened. You know that Water Nymph that sage got all frisky with?

There's a bun in the oven. . .
out of commission for 9 months. . .
eating for two. . .
carrying baggage. . .
swallowed a watermelon. . .

Also. Someone do some researching on how this actually happened. I am absolutely certain water nymphs don't work that way. Anyone find anything, let me know. Also, our bud is getting married! I'll get all of you the details for the bachelor party later.

Sam out!
]