Survival Of The Fittest

((Continued from The Halls of "Fashion"))

((We do that all the time in the Boy Scouts up at Avery Point. Granted, I understand what the mods say, goes, so I have absolutely no intention of arguing. Fixed.))

A typical day at school. Typical Bullies, Typical boredom. Not so typical of a finish. For the first time in ages since Summer camp... Peter was in the mood to swim. A brief run home and a brief run back to the school, and he was in his swimming trunks, standing at the poolside, his backpack haphazardly slammed into one of the rusty, old lockers in the changing room. He was really just hoping a nice relaxing soak would prove useful for his over-stressed body, and mind. Glancing around at the perpetual lack of anyone in the pool, really, he mused to himself about how the lifeguard dulled the boredom. With a quick splash, he was in the deep end, one of the low diving boards on the edge bouncing up and down on it's spring.

After just a few moments, A head broke the water, and peter layed on his back, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness floating in the cool, chlorinated water brought him. He rolled his head back, his short hair floating back up towards the surface as he closed his eyes.

((Liam "Brook" Brooks continued from Roses Without Thorns ))

Way to go, man. A regular, grade-A chicken. Seriously, the hell is wrong with you!? Brook wouldn't stop kicking himself all day. Tiffany had even said he was more than welcome to spend time with her today, but he hadn't been able to find her all day. No... that wasn't right, and Brook knew it. I wasn't looking very hard... am I scared? I gotta be scared, I'd look like an idiot if I ask her to the prom and she turns me down!!!

There didn't seem to be any way that the disdraught gardner could get the thought of how he had ducked out on not one, but TWO opportunities to ask the girl of his dreams out to prom, but he had to make an effort. As such, it seemed like a grand idea to take a dip in the campus pool after classes were out. Swimming wasn't something Brook got to do very often, and so he wasn't very good at it; work often caught him after school, as did Cross Country. It was spring, though, and he was on his day off, so why not swim? He didn't have to be good at it to enjoy it.

Despite the fact that he didn't bring a bathing suit with him, Brook found it feasible enough to just use the changing rooms to take off most of his clothes, including underwear, and then put back on the shorts he was wearing. Viola, instant bathing trunks! A bit heavy in that they were khaki and not a more light-weight material, they still served the purpose of not horrifying anybody with things that nobody really needed to see... Brook would REALLY never live that down.

"Huh.. somebody's here?" He mumbled to himself, holding the bundle of clothes that he was wearing until recently as he padded over to put them down on a chair far from the pool's edge. He had no idea of knowing if the place was popular or not, he almost NEVER swam. The sole swimmer besides him was somebody recognizable, though. Peter McCue, somebody who shared a couple classes with Brook. Something of a shorty but still an amusing character. Never thought he'd be much of a swimmer, this should be interesting! Brook stood at the edge of the pool's deep end, grinning. "Hey, how's the water?"

Peter was shocked to hear another voice nearby him, and a familiar one at that, as he had began to drift off while floating around in the general middle of the pool. His relaxing float was cut short as he jumped in surprise, and kind of... fell back into the water, sending him into a short panic that involved him flailing around like a beached whale for a moment.

It didn't take all that long for Peter to right himself in the pool, trying to make humor out of what just happened to his classmate. "The water's just fine. That is, when you don't drown in it." He chuckled at his own joke, racking his mind for his classmate's name. I know he's in a couple of different classes with me... Why do I keep thinking Lee? I know that's not it... Oh, right! "Hop on in Brook!" He began to paddle over towards the edge that Brook was standing on.

By the time Peter had gotten around to looking at the 'intruder' upon his relaxation, the full reaction to the boy's panicked flailing was clearly drawn on Brook's face. His countenance was lying somewhere between worry and embarrassed laughter, something that his nervous chuckle backed up. "Hey, Peter, you okay out there?" he asked, tilting his head to one side and placing his shoulders over his knees, the most stable way he could think of to lean in for an easier conversation without getting wet before he intended.

His look of amusement only grew once he heard his name said by the swimming boy. There was a pause, but hey... it's not like everybody can keep tabs on these things when you only see them once or twice a day. "I wonder if they heat the water or something, I've heard of a lot of fancy pools do that." Come to think of it, I bet that if I could figure out how they heat the pool, then apply it to... no, I've lost enough sleep on that stupid irrigation system for now! Relax, Brook, relax and thinking about stuff like that and your romantic future will come LATER!

Despite this minor inward distraction, Brook caught a hold of himself soon enough and stood up straight. "Alright, dude, but you gotta move unless you want me to land on you!" Brook motioned a little with his hand. "Either come in if you want me to jump over you, or move to the side, eh? It would suck for both of us if I land on your head!"

Peter seemed to go a little wide eyed as he heard Brook mention something about landing on his head, quickly doing a backstroke back towards the middle of the pool. After just a few moments, he righted himself yet again in the water. "Alright, I think you're clear!"

Unlike Brook, and seemingly the rest of the school, the thought of Prom hadn't even crossed his mind. Peter hadn't had a girlfriend yet in the past four years of high school, partly due to his age. And honestly, the prospect didn't interest him all that much. Really, getting good marks in his last semester had been alot more prominent for him. As he sat there, waiting for the other boy to dive in, he made a quick mental checklist of what he had left to do for homework for friday. Calculus lesson 5.7... AP Physics... Oh god, what was the lesson that we needed to read...

He was quickly knocked out of his stupor by a splash of water crashing into him. He laughed before he dunked his head under the water, swimming over to the nearest edge of the pool, leaning his arm onto it, looking over at Brook. "So, how's the water for you?"

As soon as Peter gave him the 'good to go'... the words that said he was clear, Brook backed up about two steps, pumped his legs, then sprinted to the edge of the pool. At the very least, he hit a moderately high jump and spead out all of his limbs as his body flew forward over the water. There was hardly enough time to actually appreciate it, but Brook could almost feel like a bird or a superhero the way he was spread out like that over the water. Unforunately for him, he was supposed to duck his jump into a flip... and completely forgot about that in the meantime.

The resulting effect of this botched move was a real classic: the dreaded belly-flop. Brook's mouth shot open in discomfort once the front of his body smacked against the water, a good deal of which was splashed right in Peter's direction. Smah-ooooooth. Ouch. His body wavering forward and back in his drawn-out recovery, Brook eventually got over the shocking (but quite harmless) mishap, straightening his body to swim upward until his head broke the water. "Aaaaaugh, gotta love doing that!" He said, in an attempt to add some humor to the situation while taking the spotlight away from the fact that he actually bootched it big time.

After he managed to rub his eyes free of water and open them, Brook looked around until he finally found Peter there in the water with him. "How's the water for me? Freaking cold, you damned liar!" He hastened his laughter to show Peter he hadn't meant it. "It's actually nice, once you stay in it for a few seconds. It doesn't hurt that the sun was beatin' on it all day!"

Peter noticed as Brook began to flatten out, and began to back peddle faster, a look of general 'oh shit' on his face. He watched the boy belly-flop into the pool, his face getting splashed with water from the less than graceful entry, wincing a little, imagining the pain that comes with that firm little slap across the chest. He laughed a little back to Brook's comment about the manuver. "I'd give that a 10 for effort, but only a 2 for the entry." He grinned playfully, swimming back over towards ground zero.

"Come on, it's not all that cold..." He grinned and stuck his tongue out at the boy, nodding and looking up at the large skylight. "Yeah... Cheap way of heating the pool, I guess." He looked around the pool, leaning back and floating on his back. "So, what do you want to do? I've never really been in this pool while there was another living person nearby."

"Oh no, now my swimming career is ruined! I'll never be able to recover!" Brook wailed in a falsetto once he managed to reach the edge of the deep half of the pool. Holding onto the metal lip with one hand, a slight flutter of the feet more then enough to help keep his body level. "And yeah, it IS cold!" He laid his other arm over the edge of the pool, laughing. "But, like I said, I get used to it really fast, so it's not very cold anymore. At least the pool's indoors still, so there's more of a controlled environment... and the sun still helps, so those windows are awesome."

"So, what do you want to do? I've never really been in this pool while there was another living person nearby."

"Eh, hell if I know." Brook pulled himself out of the pool to sit on the edge, rotating each shoulder. "I might jump in again, but I don't really spend much time here at the pool. I've just had a bad couple of days and need to get my mind off of things before heading home. I'm just lucky I don't have work today." He slowly began to stand up, pulling his legs out of the water first. "So, do you try to avoid the pool with people in here, or is it just... 'it happens?'

"I'm usually a pretty Anti-Social person, so I do prefer it with less people. Although, usually there isn't anyone here when a Gym Class isn't using it, so I usually get to be alone anyways." He grins to himself, flipping back onto his back, and letting the water take him where it wanted... Which happened to be absolutely nowhere. He then proceeded to spin backwards, under the water.

Upon coming back up, a few short moments later, he proceeded to splash Brook, from only a few feet away. "I think I'll do a couple of dives myself, now that I'm used to the water."

((Laverne Falciander continued from A Walk To Forget))

Laverne hated the smell of pool water. The nauseating aroma of chlorine nipped at her eyes and nostrils as she walked out of the changing room. Her face had been sensitive to that kind of stuff for awhile. Itching her nose, she walked to the pool's edge and stood there, three-hundred pounds and all. Some girls could walk into a room and carry themselves with dignity in swimsuits, but not Laverne. She was aware of every chubby fold that poked out. Every imperfection.

It was a shame, because truth to be told, she loved swimming. It was great to feel weightless in the water, and even if it was hard to keep her obese body afloat, the whole experience of being in the water was something akin to meditation. A cleansing experience.

Shaking the thought away, Laverne stared out across the pool and watched the chlorinated water slosh in and out of the side drains. There were a couple other kids in the pool off by the other side. She recognized them vaguely from school. Peter something? You've seen the other kid before too….

Laverne sucked in her breathe and jumped in.

"ACK!" Brook shieled his eyes from the splashing, squinting the little things nice and tightly shut before jumping forward into the pool once more. Thankful that the blast of cold didn't hit him like it had before, Brook forced the water out of his nose and paddled up to the water's surface. "Hey, cut splashing, this water stings!" He said once air could reach his lungs. The levity in his voice suggested that he really wasn't all that angry, but he was serious about not getting water in his eyes.

Brook managed to slowly open one eye, then the other. Nothing had really gotten in them, but having water drip from his hair into his eyes was a real pain, particularly since he had taken out his hair-tie before jumping in. After an inward hiss in preparation for any pain, he was delighted to find that his eyes were safe... this time, anyway. Pivoting his body towards the jumping end of the pool, Brook leaned back and began kicking to bring him closer to the pool's center, and that's where he saw the pool's new guest.

Daaaamn... heh, didn't quite expect to see Heavy Leavy here... but I should be nice, it's not like she's a bad girl or anything. Brook grinned a bit, swimming back more so he was out of the splash radius when she jumped in.

Right... this could get a bit interesting.

Laverne opened her eyes underwater. The corners of her eyes burned in a needled pain from the chlorine. There was a pool filter at the bottom of the pool, and for just a second, her entire body shivered. She'd saw a news report when she was little about a girl getting her intestines sucked out through a pool pump and it had scared her ever since. Urban legends, though. That's all that shit is. Bitch was probably doing something stupid.

Kicking her legs back, she urched her arms up and flew to the surface, sending white drops of pool foam in every direction. Taking in a deep breathe of moist air, she ran her fingers through her hair that had even more of a greasy shine to it now that it was wet.

Oh, Liam Brooks. That's who it is. And that McCue kid.

Two people who Laverne wasn't fond of at all. This wasn't saying much, considering she saw her classmates more like pawns on a chessboard than actual people, but she couldn't help feel a strong distaste when she looked at the two of them. You could probably outswim em' in a real race. Probably both of em'. No competition...

But that was sort of mean. Neither of them were really that bad when it came down to it. In fact, if Laverne was forced to say the truth, she would have to say that both of them were relatively decent people. She didn't really know either of them well enough to say this, but at least they weren't really part of the crowd that directly had picked on her. Still, what's saying they weren't talking about you behind your back?

Her need to pick out flaws in people was too strong. With so much bad in the world, so much hurt, it was often to see the good - that was, if there was any good to begin with. Laverne suddenly wished that she'd never changed into her bathing suit. This wasn't a place she belonged.

But she couldn't say what she really thought about them. Better yourself, don't give in. You have to go along to get along...

"Hey guys", Laverne called out cheerfully. She started to swim over. "What's going on?"

((Wow, sorry guys. I didn't realize that both of you had posted a second time.))

Peter stopped mid splash, having just noticed a girl that just looked familiar to him from the halls about to jump into the pool. He laughed a little bit and waved cheerfully, not noticing Brook maneuver himself to the middle of the pool. "Wow, I guess it's really a party now!" He exclaimed. "I've definitely never seen more than two people here after hours." He shrugged it off, closing his eyes, and sucking in a deep breath, and diving underwater. He really had no where to shoot for, but he just swam aimlessly for a little bit, for as long as his breath would hold out.

I always come here to get piece and quiet, but this honestly isn't all that bad... I'm surprised though. Is something going on today? He hadn't even made a thought to the identity of the girl who had just arrived, as Peter didn't think he'd actually met her yet. The only real thing on his mind concerning the other two guests was where they were in relation to his head as he continued to swim blind.

(Madeleine Smith continued from Viva La Chemistry)

Taking a quick glance into the pool area as she stepped out of the female locker room, Madeleine noticed that there were a few people in the pool. This was not too much of a problem, seeing as the pool was fairly big, so everybody had room to stay far apart from one another. Besides, what's the worst they could do? Drown her?

No lifeguard on duty, but with me there, it's evenly split between boys and girls, so I should be safe. Please let that be so.

Though not remotely a great swimmer, Madeleine knew enough to keep herself afloat, and was fairly fluent in the freestyle. And for her purposes in this recreational swim, that was really all she needed. Taking slow steps out of the dressing room in a fairly inconspicuous plain blue suit, she walked over to the edge of the pool, tested the water with one foot, and jumped in, not because of the rules on No Diving, but simply because she didn't feel like figuring out the proper technique with her head.

Okay, it's cold enough. I hate warm water.

Swimming back and forth a bit, she wondered whether she should join the people swimming over on the other end of the pool, but then shrugged and went back to doing a lap or two. She may have been willing to get into the pool, but she was still quite leery about actually talking to them. Maybe if they came over and talked to her instead...

Gosh, I am so pathetic. You'd think they had germs or something.

Despite her own snide mockery, she wasn't getting any closer to them. It was stupid, it was silly, but the only way she was going over there would be if piranhas started breeding in her end.

Brook held his breath and dipped under the water's surface momentarily just before Laverne made impact. I know it's mean, but I can't just help but think... TIDAAAAL WAAAAAVE! On a mental count of three, his head broke the surface once more. Follwing a shake of the head or two to get his hair out of his face, Brook resumed swimming on his back and heading back and forth along the pool.

"Heeeeeey there!" He sang in response to Laverne's greeting, using long and slow strokes of his arms to keep him moving at a gradual pace. "Nothing major's going on... a little aquatic relaxation for yet another crappy day." He supposed the day wasn't THAT bad, yet the phrase practically required saying. "I'd say we're chilling if it didn't lead into one of the worst puns of all time."

If anything else was said, Brook probably hadn't noticed. While his manner of swimming kept him afloat in good fashion, his ears sometimes dipped underwater. It was a nice, muffling effect and, follwing a few more paddles, he decided that under the water was the right place for his ears to be. Hell, there's not even much point to keep my eyes open. No hot chicks to eye, no death-inducing obstacles to not swim into... just relax! He obeyed his own coaxings and shut his eyes, only wincing when a drop of water or two dripped on his eyelids thanks to a stray lock of wet hair.