fh_trips | Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Evening | Sunday

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spring break 2011: hawaii

Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Evening | Sunday | February 20

As the sun gave way to the moon, the lights around the Big Island started coming on, brightening up the dark sky. Night falling just meant several new ways for the guests to enjoy themselves! A slight wind ruffled the palm trees but the temperature remained warm, making it comfortable enough to take long walks on the beach or just enjoy gazing up at the clear night sky.

There was still plenty to do, though! Nighttime activities were starting to swing into motion, music was wafting along the breeze, drawing people towards it's rhythmic sounds, and the smells of Hawaiian dishes were prevalent.

It was nighttime in Hawaii and the vacation had just begun!

[OCD is up! Guest Quarters | Resort Activities | Dining | Luana Lounge | Kahakai Bar Oceanfront | OOC This is going up early for maximum play time for all timezones!]

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"A vacation from a vacation?" Ben snorted. "I'm not that fragile."

"No one's calling you fragile, kreetle," Ender said, dryly. "You're the one who raised the idea."

Ben smiled a little wryly at him. "Guess I did," he admitted, shoving the vast array of appetizers as they arrived to the table between them. "Eat something? None of it's ice cream, even."

"One, you're not my mother," Ender said, sighing, "Two, I really am not that hungry."

Ben bit back several unflattering comments about Ender's mother and shrugged. "Your loss," he said, snagging something fried.

He would be bugging Ender about it a little later, of course.

"Want to talk about it yet?"

"Are you going to be very offended if I tell you 'not really'?"

"I won't even be a little offended," Ben said with a quick, sympathetic smile. "Just wanted you to know I'm interested."

Which, depending on what "it" they weren't talking about--and there was a pretty lengthy list--was not a fantastically intelligent thing to say.

At this point, they could probably canvas a floor with the list of stuff they weren't talking about. Even if since last week they were trying to at least cut it back to the essentials.

"I filled Karla in on the basics of what happened," he said, "That's about my speed today."

"That's fine," Ben replied. "It was a lot of stuff for a few days."

"I guess it was," Ender said, vaguely. "I'll take some time."

He wasn't trying to be a vacation buzzkill, honest. But this side of working hard to be cheery and go along with Karla's enthusiasm, he wasn't really up to vacation standards. He could 'switch on' as Ben liked to call it, but somehow he thought that'd be even less appreciated.

Ben would have been pretty weirded out if Ender had turned cheery on him. He reached over to tousle Ender's hair. "Take all the time you need. I'm worn out and only caught probably half of the subtext."

Ender quirked a slight, amused little half-smile at him. "The rest of the subtext wasn't important," he said. "Not really, anyway."

He glanced at the waves across the beach. "I think I'm just going to spend a lot of time swimming this week."

Ben took a sip from his drink. "I've visited your world enough to know that the parts I didn't pick up will be the parts that bite me later," he said. "I'll figure it out later. Swimming sounds good. The weather is dangerously close to perfect."

Ender let a silence fall. Just for a little while. He had no response for that.

"I'm never going back there," he said, after an indeterminable time. "So you can stop worrying about what's going to bite you in the ass."

That certainly got Ben's attention. "The planet or the dimension in general?" he asked.

"The planet," Ender said. "I don't think they're letting me back a third time. I don't know if I want to go back a third time, at that."

So that was the last time on his home planet. He supposed he should feel more emotional about it.

"That second part is more important to me than the first," Ben said quietly. "You're sure."

It wasn't really a question.

Ender turned his face back towards him; he was smiling a little, but it was very crooked. "It's not like I ever thought I'd be able to go back there in the first place."

Ender was too far away from Ben to headbutt him, as much as he might want to.

"Still," he said with an equally crooked smile. "They'll miss you."

"They'll be out in space soon enough. Most of them," Ender said, shaking his head. "Oh, and apparently Bean and Petra named their firstborn after me."

Less crooked smile. More wistful.

The past few days had shaken loose a few things.

"Of course they did," Ben said, smiling back. "Andrew or Ender?"

"Ender," he said, "but they maintain that it's just a logical nickname based off a genuine saint's name."

It was about the only baby named after him that didn't make Ender want to curl up into a ball in a corner somewhere and pretend not to exist.

Ben let out a little chuckle. "If that's how they want to play it, fine." He was glad that there was some good news that had come from all of the posturing and stress. "They're still tracking down the rest of the embryos?"

"Graff's digging up leads for them," Ender said, with a little nod. "With any luck, they'll work out."

Ben's jaw clenched at Graff's name. He tried to cover it by grabbing another snack. "How much time do they have?" he asked.

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