Waves rose and fell, crashing thunderously, sifting through the powder-fine sand, and puddling around the weathered and wiggling sand-covered toes of one scowling Finnegan Whitlow. He normally liked the beach, but as of late, he's had a hard time getting there. You know...to that place? Where his mind would just shut the hell up and his leg would stop throbbing. It hadn't happened in a while. Looking over his shoulder, he slung his shirt over one shoulder and started towards the boat slip and back to civilization.

His leg caught and twinged everytime he took a step into the sand, his feet dragging in the sand and making his muscles work harder as he walked. He flicked his shades back down onto his face, frowning as he finally got to one of many jetty's and stopped to take a rest, stretching his hip a little and feeling the tremor's starting. Fantastic.

He had just dosed up about four hours ago and it was already wearing off, making his hip muscles twitch painfully. He bit his lower lip, looking off into the distance and wondering if he really wanted to walk that whole way back? Standing there, he thought about alot of things. About jumping into the ocean and letting it take his bloated body away to china. Then no one would worry about him, have to take care of him. The pain would go away...the drugs would leave his mind and he'd be...whole again. If he was ever whole to start with.

Julia found herself going to the beach quite often recently. Since the clarity she’d gained from her talk with Sabrina, she saw it as a safe haven where she could sort out her feelings and basically just be alone. Things at home were always too damn crazy, and she was always eager to get out. Since the boys were back, however, she had to start making sure she wouldn’t put herself in awkward positions with Turner and Johnny, which pretty much kept her from going over to the Whitlows. And Corina? Well, with her fiancé problems, Jules really didn’t want to bother the girl too much.

So she’d pulled on a pair of shorts, an old shirt from a soccer rec league she’d been in, and a pair of bright yellow running shoes. Deciding to take the long way around the beach, she was jogging up behind a figure and she frowned as she watched them limp. After years of soccer, she had learned to tell when a person was really in pain, and this guy was obviously in some pain. Deciding she wouldn’t bother them- they already looked bothered enough- she began to run past them, but she stopped immediately, almost falling forward as her feet had obviously wanted to keep on running.

“Finn?” she asked, eyes wide as she looked at him. Since she’d been avoiding the Whitlow house, she hadn’t seen him at all. “Are you...” she wanted to say ‘okay?’, but he obviously wasn’t, and asking that wouldn’t help him feel any better, so she inquired, “are you here by yourself? Or do you mind if I join you?” Smiling hopefully, she walked closer to him and squatted down, resting her forearms against her thighs as she looked at him. He looked rough- really rough, and that scared her. Vaguely, she wondered if he was high or just coming down off a high. Oh, she really hoped she wasn’t coming in on a moment that he would have preferred to spend alone.

“I, I can leave if you want,” she added rather unsurely, biting her lower lip.

Finn heard the running steps behind him, but ignored them as he just focused on making the pain leave his body the way the physical therapist had taught him. Taking deep breaths and calming his nerves, he blocked the pain mentally. Usually that could work for a while, but it was just a temporary fix. He heard the steps stop suddenly, and breathing over his shoulder, and then his name asked in a female voice he recognized. Miss Jules. Fantastic.

"Jules?" He said, looking over his shoulder at her and then turning with a smile on his face. He loved this chick. She was so...fiery. She didn't take shit from anyone, not even him. It was amazing. She was wearing jogging gear, and he looked her up and down. "Looking good..." He said and his eyes went a little wide as she asked if he wanted her to leave. No matter how much pain he was in, he always wanted her around.

"No, never, absolutely not...fancy seeing you here, I'm so used to seeing you around my brothers, I hardly ever get the pleasure of talking to you alone." He said and smiled, cocking his head to the side.

Her uncertainty totally disappearing at his enthusiasm to have her join him, Julia grinned and prodded his shoulder before saying lightly, “Well of course I’m looking good, Finnegan Whitlow!” Rolling her eyes and sitting down next to him, she added, “Since when have you needed to tell me that? I’ve always just assumed I look good pretty much constantly!” Sticking out her tongue at him, Jules drew a leg up and folded it beneath her, so she was sort of sitting on her foot, while the other one hung off the edge of the jetty. Swinging it back and forth, she tilted her head to the side.

That comment about never really having her to himself sort of made her feel bad. After all, it was true. Sometimes she felt like she sort of overlooked Finn. Hell, sometimes she felt like the world overlooked Finn. It must have been hard for him to have Johnny, the ‘perfect’ brother, only a year behind him. She was certain people must compare the two constantly. She could just hear the old ladies at the hair salon gossiping while sitting beneath those huge hair dryer things. ‘Oh, what a shame Atticus’ older boy didn’t turn out like that middle one,’ they’d say, ‘ He’s a true gentleman, but I heard that the older one does drugs, and I heard he gambles, too.’ Julia was thinking that anyone who felt like that deserved a kick to the head; obviously if they were talking about Finn like that, they really didn’t know him. Sure, Johnny was great, but sometimes all the... goodness was overwhelming. That was what she loved about Finnegan; you knew he wasn’t sugar-coating the truth, and his sarcastic wit was always appreciated.

“Yeah,” she said, after doing that previously stated thinking, “I really haven’t stopped by your house lately, have I?” Shrugging, she added as a rather lame attempt at an excuse, “I just figured you guys would need your time to, er, settle in and stuff. And, I’ve been busy practicing. And training. And... stuff.” She knew he’d probably see through that, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t about to divulge the truth. That would be potentially disastrous. But, she reasoned, if anyone could handle it, it would be Finnegan.

Letting her head fall against his shoulder for a moment, she sighed. “Y’know, I just wish things weren’t so fucked up.” Though it was a random comment, she was sure he would agree with her.

Why did he want her so much? He had no right...she wasn't for him, and certainly she didn't feel the same. Did she? Everyone loved Johnny, everyone favored him over Finn, including Jules. Johnny-boy didn't deserve Jules, he needed some blonde quite chick. Jules had fire, a personality...and she was beautiful. And she was sitting next to him, her head on his shoulder...he felt more at peace than he had when he had been by himself.

"You are so trying to dodge something, you can't put anything past me...you know that...what's up girl?" He asked, looking at her face in the sun and wishing he had enough balls to just...kiss her and see what happened, but he was a coward. " And yeah... shit's fucked up...happens. I kinda like it that way, makes life more interesting." He said and chuckled a little, scratching his chin.

His leg was fucked up, his addiction was fucked up...his mind was fucked up and he had no way of putting everything back the way it should have been. He had slept with Bambi, but he didn't love her. She was flesh in his hands when he needed it, something to make him feel a little less...ugly. The idea of Jules and him was ridiculous, but it seemed to make sense.

ooc; first let me say I AM SORRY THIS TOOK SO INCREDIBLY LONG.
please feel free to shoot and/or stab me a few times:]

bic; The way Finnegan could read her, know that dear Julia was thinking something when she wasn’t even sure if she was thinking it, was nothing short of incredible. Sure, Turner could occasionally tell when something was wrong with her. But that was when she was sitting there, arms folded across her chest, and a foul look on her face. Yes, that boyfriend of hers was quite the observant one. Johnny, however, was a bit more in tune with her.
But, honestly, no one got her quite like Finn did. There were times when that came in handy, but there were times like this when it was kind of irritating. Couldn’t he just not figure out that something was bugging her.

Deciding that she could lie- he’d be able to see through that in a second- Julia decided to delicately skirt the truth, while still refraining from lying. “Well,” she began, frowning slightly, “I guess it’s about your brother. I’m just not sure any more.” She sighed, content with that rather lame answer. Lifting her head off his shoulder, she poked him lightly in the side. “And you aren’t helping,” she added, raising her eyebrows at him.

Shifting the way she was sitting, Julia pulled both of her legs up to sit crisscross-style, her forearms laying lightly on her thighs. “I guess it makes life interesting, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t so interesting, you know? I guess I still want the excitement, but I want to know what’s coming. Like, when we’d have to read books for school, I’d always read the ending first so I knew what happened.” Laughing, she added, “And then I’d spoil the ending for the whole class. But it was nice because then I could be sure who died, who got married, and all that crap.”