vermillion | ✫

blondies beach | 1

song recommendation: get free - major lazer

The rising rays were a walk in the park compared to those of the afternoon, saccharine, that'll paint your skin colours of red. Vermillion, as some put it. And it was a morning of cast sunlight, where it remained hidden past shores of brilliant blues. Scorching air and tainted skin would be seen from eleven, through to four, as the lifeguard assumed. His hand shielding his eyes as he looked across the waves like it was some sort of morse code he had to figure out.

He did not like long hair, it would always be annoying seeing as he spent most of his days in the water, soaken with the summers lasting hours, and yet it fell across his face, it swallowed him whole.

But he needn't mind, not when it was only the start of summer, with hours left of the weeks, and he'd be here, sitting at Tower Seven, for the remaining thirteen weeks. But he needn't mind. Not if his walk was like this, with the calm of the seashore seagulls, and the occasional person living their top-motivational lives. They'd be the ones to sink themselves in the damp sand, dresses going down to their knees. There was always a camera.

And now, as this lifeguard drags red flags behind him, he sets a look towards the tower. And groans with all passion input.

See, he wasn't necessarily the type of guy who minded sharing the early hours of the beach with homeless people. If anything, he used to spend the mornings before sunrise with these people, they'd help, and share laughs.

What he did mind was when people used the towers as shelter, there were piers and certain boat sheds would occasionally be left open. And now as he digs the flag into the ground for the onsetting surfers, he eyed up the homeless man carefully. He didn't look all that bad, at least from a distance. And the lifeguard carefully surveys the waters and makes sure his flags are correctly in place before walking back to the tower, a spring in his step, and a painfully grumbling stomach.

"Hey Blondie."

Theres no response.

He looks around, looking at the man carefully, short hair, that was both dead straight, and had ringlets. It was a dirty blonde, and the colour remained golden in this crisp lighting. The lifeguard crouched down, hugging his knees and surveying the man with a cautious glare. He poked him first, and when that didn't work he fell to the sand and glared with knitted brows.

A shove later and the blonde was whisked awake, letting out a gasp in tune to his breathing pattern, which had grown rapid since being awoken by this strange man. "Sorry, you wouldn't wake up- Anyway, I need you to move, lifeguard towers aren't shelters."

"What? I'm not homeless." The blonde now took his turn to surveying this mysterious person. Hair of umber that burnt like bonfires, and he truly did look alive with the Floridian sun beaming down on porcelain skin. He was a mere figure of the moment, an angel, and his eyes took turns between darting at the beach, the ocean and himself again. Brown they were, and it would be a muddled mess to just describe them as that single colour, when they held so much within them. The tension those eyes held, cautious movements and manner, and it's now the blonde can't exactly call them brown. Because they weren't, not when the sun beat into them and twisted a colour so close to red, he felt taken aback.

vermillion.

"Clay, uh, friends call me Dream."

"Well, Clay, why are you under my tower?"

Clay inspected the lover-eyed boy, the way tufts of hair fell between his eyes, and he sent a spiralling breath upwards to flick it away. Rich, the colour, a dark chocolate that savoured both the familiarity of sweetness, and delicacy.

"You're a lifeguard?"

He nods. And Clays mouth falls to an o-shape. "Are you George?"

"So you know my name.." He lifts an eyebrow, still holding his knees and carefully he stands, reaching for the keys to the tower in his shorts. "Yeah, I'm a summer recruit, sent from Miami."

"So you're a volunteer?"

"We all are, aren't we? Living our lives on the beaches while trying to support ourselves with other income."

"I didn't ask you to elaborate. But sure." George stands properly, and he watches as the blonde grabs his bag, setting himself on his feet too. "Why didn't you just come in later? No reason to be sleeping under the tower."

He shrugs, "Told you I came down from Miami, my house is up there, not here."

"So you are homeless."

Clay frowns, and he lets an exhale slip between thin lips. Or as George studied them harder, he'd find himself nearly drawn to them. "I wouldn't put it as homeless, but for the summer, sure."

"Oh great, so do you have a supervisor down here?" The two walked up the ramp, and the key slotted into the lock. George pushed through and set the keys on a hook. "Uh, yeah. Thats how I know your name."

George turns to face Clay, and he groans internally. He'd have to look after the newbies every summer, and as it turns out, this summer was no different. "So tell me, why'd you move from Miami's beaches."

"Too rough." He pauses, biting down on the bottom of his lip, and George watches his every move intently, the way his eyes downcast, a vibrant green, and he set his gaze on something else, such as the floor.

"Lives are always lost, but it's our job to save the ones we can." George reassures, and he sends a smile to the blonde, meeting with those greens once more. "Right, thirteen towers across Founders Beach, three piers, One of those piers holds the carnival right now, it's there every summer for the whole thirteen weeks." He explains and sits down in the chair.

The waves started to form colours, of strokes, of artistic movements that symbolised colour in every form, yet one stood out the most, a brilliant red that tumbled over the horizon carefully.

Vermillion.

❛ authors note ❜ 

hello! hopefully you all enjoyed chapter one :) for once i decided not to do a prologue lol, didn't really make sense to.

anyway, ill be doing daily uploads for now, we'll see how that goes :D i'm going to try and aim for 100 reads by october 15th, exactly a month away, we'll see how that goes!!