Fanfic - It's High Tide We Had Some Fun (Day 2)

~Day 2~

It should not have surprised the guys that Janine could pull her weight when she wanted to, she had saved them enough in the past to prove it. What did surprise them was that she could actually make a mean breakfast that was both pretty good tasting and nutritional. Apparently Winston was not the only one worried about Egon's junkfood intake and Peter's over all lack of intake as he had been running around the beach all yesterday with his pretty new friend.

"So, Dr. V, what're your plans today?" Their secretary asked brightly as she set the plate down in front of him before taking her own seat. She hid a smile as he mumbled a thank you to her around a mouthful of food.

"I'm going to hang out with Illuwa for a bit before she has to go into town but not sure when that is. Besides that, I wanted to check out that rock wall along the beachside and Ray said he'd make sandcastles with me!" The team was not sure they had ever heard anyone so excited about sandcastles before and Ray was suddenly feeling oddly pressured to make this good. Maybe it was the fact that they had not been to the beach officially in many years or maybe he just really liked sandcastles and they had no idea. All they did know was that they had not seen him as such a ball of energy in weeks, "I have to text Illuwa after breakfast to see when she'll be on the beach so we can meet up. She's going to teach me how to make things out of the shells we collected!" His family stopped eating and blinked at him in concern as Ray spoke up.

"She just gave you her number?"

"Yeah, why?"

"No reason. Just sounded odd."

"We wanted to keep in touch so we could meet up today and I told her I was going to look around the rocks. She told me to text her a picture if I found anything interesting over there. Her husband had to stay home so she wanted to make him something from stuff we found on the beach." His explanation finished, Peter quickly went back to eating. He completely missed Ray's worried grimace, Janine's frown, and the concerned look that passed between the team's two eldest members.

~*~G~*~

Peter smiled as he wandered off from his family. He knew they would be a while as they decided how to set up today's picnic site. As hilarious as it was to watch Winston and Ray argue over the best position to place the umbrella to guard said site from the heat of the sun he had more important things to do. Like explore!

He pulled the Poptart out that was hidden in the pocket of his trunks and began to munch on it. With all the complaining Janine did about her bathing suit's lack of storage space he found himself rather fond of the absurd amount of pockets she had ordered when she had specialized swim trunks made for each of her four bosses. It made it so easy to carry home all the ridiculous beach "treasures" he found lying about. So what if he already had a bucket full of beach junk from yesterday, Ecto had the room to carry all the stuff he would collect by the end of the week.

He held his treat in his mouth as he blindly reached down to where his iPod was clipped to his waistband as he watched were he was stepping on the rocky outcrop. He hit the randomizer and let the upbeat music flow through his earbuds to add to his little adventure. Content with the device's choice in background music, he began to climb down into the rocky valley of the outcrop that divided the beach. He was currently in search of tide pools.

He was not sure he had ever admitted it but he loved tide pools. They just sparked the scientist in him, even if it was nowhere near his field. They just had so many colorful things to discover in their tiny depths!

His eye was drawn to the sparkle of one of the pools that half lay in the shade of the wall. He carefully jumped off a short rock ledge onto the one with the pool. He was surprised by the size of the little habitat, he could see several tiny lifeforms going about their daily lives within. Even the muscles stuck against the rock were open sightly to collect particles from the water.

He grinned and knelt down, pulling out his phone as he watched two hermit crabs skitter around each other. He snapped a few pictures before starting to take a video of the now scuffling crabs, he could not wait to show Egon the crazed little creatures. Though, that opportunity was almost lost as he just about dropped his phone into the pool at the sudden sharp pain in his leg.

He jumped to feet and looked down. His eyebrows raised as he spotted what assaulted him. It was a mid-sized crab holding a driftwood stick in its claw. His surprise wore off quickly as he smirked when he spotted some more of the sticks. He quickly stepped over the tiny creature and snatched up one of the twigs. He gave a bark of laughter as he spun around and quickly crouched down before the crab, aiming the piece of driftwood towards his 'foe' like a fencing foil.

"En garde, Matey!" He exclaimed in his best pirate voice, snorting a laugh as an Alestorm song came up on random.

He gently tapped the crab's twig with his own to start their little sword fight. He found out very quickly that crabs were actually very good at fencing, especially parrying. His free hand reactivated the record button on his phone and caught about the last minute of their crab battle before the crustacean grabbed Peter's 'foil' with its free claw and yanked it out of the human's loose grip. He laughed loudly and recorded it scuttling away between the rocks with both sticks.

~*~G~*~

When Peter had told Illuwa about his team-turned-family, there were some things that had just not been conveyed in such great detail. Like how terrifying looking the woman he saw as a sister was. The light-skinned, fiery red-head was lounged like an evil queen in a polka dot bikini and jean short-shorts atop a throne made out of a camp chair. The red cat's eye glasses only added to the ominousness of the tiny woman reading a magazine (who even read those anymore?). She was suddenly very nervous of even thinking about talking to the older woman.

"H-hello?"

"Wha'd ya want?!" The reply was snapped in irritation as the woman never even looked up from her reading.

"I-I'm looking for Peter." This made the fire-witch look up with eyes that could have melted titanium. Her action of peering over the top of her glasses sent a chill of fear through Illuwa.

"So, you're Doctor Venkman's new playdate."

"Doctor?"

"Yup. Doc of psychology. Don't ask me how with that attention span." Janine lowered her magazine and sat up straight, actually making her scarier despite how petite she was, "Now, Sister, I'm only gonna ask you this once. What's a married girl like you want with a guy like him?" The silent threat from the tiny secretary hung heavily in the air.

"W-we're just friends. I-I was feeling lonely and I met him while I was seashell hunting. I'm not stringing him along, I swear! Anyways, it'd be a little creepy. He's like a big twelve-year-old!" Anger flashed in Janine's eyes at the words, thinking that her boss was being insulted and belittled by this woman (she had seen it enough to get easily protective). It did not matter if that's exactly how she saw him most of the time because this woman just did not know him on the same level as Janine and the others.

Illuwa winced and mentally slapped herself; that's not how you made friends. She suddenly felt terrifyingly obligated to explain herself to this woman, "I-I didn't mean it in a bad way! I-I just meant that he's really innocent and playful! He's fun to hang out with. He just reminds me of a friend I had in highschool." Janine regarded her silently for a moment before suddenly returning to her lounging position and opened her magazine once more. Illuwa stood there stupidly for a moment, unsure what to do now.

"Keep it that way. Now sit down, Ma'am! The boys'll be back soon." Illuwa let out a breath she had been holding, she was off the hook for now. She quickly did as she was told, clutching her bucket of shells as she waited.

~*~G~*~

Winston had not been surprised that there was a snack shack on the beach. What did surprise him was how it was more like a beach-side cafe' and was named "Tory's Refreshment Center". The massive variety of foods and drinks sold was also astounding. He could only shake his head in awe as he and Peter walked away with what few supplies they needed.

"Hey, Peter?" He asked slowly as he balanced his items.

"Hmm?" His companion looked up from his snowcone with interest.

"It's about your new friend."

"Illuwa?"

"Yeah, her. How you feel about her? Do you like her?" Winston was trying to be cautious about this. Though, he hated talking down to Peter, his friend was not stupid.

"Wha? Of course I like her." Peter looked confused for a few short moments before realization hit and he frowned slightly, "Oh! You mean 'like her' like her. No, I can't say that I do. She feels too much like Janine, it'd just be weird. Plus, she's married. Why?"

"I just don't want you getting hurt."

"I got this, Winston. Everything's fine, I promise." Peter flashed a reassuring smile and offered his friend some of his icy treat.

~*~G~*~

All four of the guys returned around the same time. Illuwa could not tell if she was happy about that or not. Peter greeted her excitedly as the others politely said hello, the same protective regard in their eyes as Janine as Peter did introductions. She had never been happier than when he pulled her away towards the water.

~*~G~*~

"Are those trunks new? They're different from yesterday." Illuwa asked as they worked on their shell necklaces. Peter blinked in confusion at the sudden conversation topic and looked down. He smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, Janine had them made specially for me and the guys. They're the same colors as our uniforms and have our company's symbol on the side." He chirped his reply proudly. Illuwa blinked in her own confusion, eyes drawn to the 'no ghosts' symbol and wondered what on earth kind of company they had. Oddly, the two of them had not really shared any details about things outside the beach, like jobs. As it was, she had only just found out he was a doctor of psychology, and that information had been offered up by Janine of all people. The woman still scared her.

"Think Janine will like this one?" Peter asked excitedly as he held up the necklace he was currently working on.

~*~G~*~

"You made two?" Winston voiced the communal surprise of himself and his two companions as all three stared down at Peter and Ray. Both men were each sitting in the middle of a massive cluster of sand national monuments. They both smiled and nodded in reply to the question.

"Peter wanted to play movie monster again but we worked so hard on the first set and they looked so nice that he didn't want to mess them up." Ray motioned to the monument set Peter was sitting in, "So, we built another! It took forever but we finally did it!" The two laughed in pleased exhaustion. Their friends looked a bit shocked at such a simple explanation for a near perfect duplication of the first set of sand structures.

"That's great, guys. But you look tired, come eat dinner before Peter goes Godzilla on those helpless sand buildings. You two have been building for hours." The two perked up at Winston's offer of food, quickly following their friends back to their umbrella. Though, Peter could not help deliberately kicking a pyramid before he left.

~*~G~*~

It was not camping but it turned out that roasted marshmallows on the beach tasted just as amazing. Though, the puffy treats were mostly for Ray and Peter's benefit. The tiny pieces of white still left the other three uneasy after all these years. Just looking at the sugary treats as they burned was a little too much of a reminder of the two barely avoided disasters brought on by ghostly marshmallows.

Despite the close proximity to the nightmare-inducing sugar puffs, everyone was having a lovely night. The little group of five sat on beach towels around a campfire set up in the sand. They were each telling fun stories from when they were little. The three scientists were lacking in selection but shared what they could. When it was their turn but could not think of one, Winston or Janine would quickly begin one before their friend became depressed.

Winston was currently in the middle of some ridiculous fishing tale made complete with exaggerations and crazed hand motions. Ray and Janine were caught in a fit of giggles while Egon was trying to rescue Peter's fingers from their prison of melted marshmallow as the brunet happily laughed along with his friends. The sugary substance was eventually salvaged to be used in a s'more for Peter but not before even Egon was laughing at the absurd level of insanity the story had grown to.

The night continued in much the same fashion. Winston and Janine began to one-up each other on absurd stories that were quickly so blown out of proportion that there was no telling what was real and what was not. Ray kept both the fire and their two storytellers fueled with refreshments. Egon had opted to rescue Peter by just making all the s'mores for him while their youngest member provided witty commentary on the stories that only had them all laughing harder.

~*~End Day 2~*~