A towel flapped loudly in harmony to the brisk, windy breeze that darted back and forth along Chesapeake Bay. When the towel lay as flat on the rock-scattered shore as it possibly could, a duffel bag plopped down on one end, preventing the towel form flapping away, into the bay. A figure stepped around the bag and took a seat on the towel, minding where she sat by reaching her hand beneath her before she sat, feeling around for any protruding pebbles.
"I forgot how cold it really was." She muttered quickly, almost incoherently. Her head whipped backwards, to the figure standing behind her with a hand on his hip and a fedora on his crown. "Is it not cold to you?"
"It's tolerable, my dear." He replied in his deep, resonating voice. He moved to sit beside the woman.
The woman laughed, "Tired of standing around, old man?" She saw the smirk and rolling of eyes on his face before she continued her teasing, "Are your joints finally catching up to your age, Burke?"
The man reached up to remove his glasses before folding them and placing them in his suit pocket.
"I'm a very active man. My joints may never catch up to me."
The woman turned back to face the bay. She tilted her head up and closed her eyes, "God, do you feel that breeze?"
He tilted his head back as well, "Salty. Radioactive. Mildly disgusting odor?" he said, wrinkling his nose.
She chuckled in response, "Yes. That one." Grinning, she continued, "Can you believe those pictures in pre-war magazines? Tons of people would sit around at places like this bay – they even let children play in the water. Preposterous, isn't it?"
Burke watched her smile, almost forming his own as he looked at her.
"It must have been different back then. I can't imagine allowing any child near this water unless I wanted their skin to peel or their eyesight to eventually fail." She finished.
The woman pushed a lock of hair out of her face and brushed it behind her ear. She opened her eyes and stared at the dull, grey, post-apocalyptic sky. Burke followed her line of sight, leaning back on his arms. Clouds passed overhead, though one would have to stare intently to be able to distinguish between cloud and sky, as they were both depressing hues of the same grey.
She laughed quietly, "Look, that cloud looks like a yao guai." She stretched her arm and pointed just above them. At first, all Mr. Burke saw was a dark grey blob layered over the darker grey sky, but indeed, upon further inspection, the cloud did resemble the silhouette of a large bear. And immediately to the left was another peculiar shape.
"There's a Protectron next to it." He noted, pointing up at the space of sky beside the yao guai cloud.
The woman erupted in a sweet, melodic laughter, "It is!" As her laughter died, another bout of laughs bubbled from her throat, "Look! It's turning into a mole rat!"
Working under Tenpenny, Burke had never encountered a more beautiful laugh. It was a laugh that you could hear and immediately know how pretty the lips that sang them were. He shut his eyes in an attempt to block out all else, but the laughter -his one desire in this moment was to memorize every adorable hic and inhale in her laughter and remember it whenever he may not be in her presence. He opened his eyes and tilted his head back to stare once more at the dull sky.
The cloud was morphing into a much rounder shape, merging with the yao guai. Mr. Burke searched for another strange cloud to amuse her and induce more sweet laughter as she shifted her sitting position. As Burke was about to announce the appearance of a mirelurk-shaped cloud, he felt the woman lie back, her head landing gently in his lap. Her eyes slid shut and a small smile lingered upon her lips.
Burke shifted his intent gaze from the sky to her freckled face. There was a soft feeling that bloomed in his core as he studied her face. Her nose was slightly crooked when you looked closely. Probably from some bar fight, as she had a reputation for heavy drinking and aggression, contrary to her innocent heart-shaped face and fondness for simpler things. Her eyelids were coated lightly in a dark powder. Probably charcoal. Despite her beauty, the woman still insisted that she wear some semblance of eye make-up. She was so beautiful to him. So perfect. His entire world –everything he cared deeply about, all compact in this single person. This one mortal body. Never would he let anything hurt her if he could help it.
In his trance induced by her darling face, he failed to notice her fingers reach up and loosen his tie. Only when she reached further up and removed his glasses did he realize, "What are you doing, my dear?"
Her smile widened, countering the cool evening breezes that began to approach the bay. When her eyelids fluttered open, the woman was greeted by Burke's smirk, causing her to begin to laugh once more.
"In honesty, I only wanted to try to see how much I could do to you before you notice." She glanced toward his shoe and he notices that the shoelaces on his left shoe had been untied.
She made to sit back up, but Burke pressed a palm to her collarbone, gently leaning her back down on his lap, "No, please don't get up quite yet, dear girl."
She grinned back up at him in response, shrugging, as though to ask Sure, why not? He took one of her hands in his and brought it up to his cheek, pressing her palm to his skin. His eyes closed, feeling her hand and its precious warmth on his face. Her thumb drew spirals upon his cheek, on the skin right below his ear. He dropped his hand, resting it tentatively on her abdomen, feeling her breaths; her inhale; her exhale. The wind blew a corner of the exposed towel that was not being weighted down by their bodies or the rucksack they brought, overlapping it on his knee. Her hand still caressed his cheek, leaving the other cheek exposed and feeling incongruent.
As if reading his mind, she moved her hand to his other cheek.
The next breeze causes the woman to shiver, Burke notes. He bends forward to brush his lips against the woman's momentarily, but she pulls him closer as she leans forward to press her lips against his.
The woman murmurs against his mouth, "I think we should come here more often."
Burke agrees. He wouldn't mind returning to do this.
She was his precious songbird.