Dani/Manuel - Night Swimming

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Dani goes out for a swim and is joined by Manuel. There is much friendship and general relaxing. Well...mostly.



It was nights like these that made Danielle feel like everything was perfect and would always be this way. Warm, but with a gentle breeze, fireflys flickering through the trees and cicadas and crickets singing. Everything in the world just seemed to be right for a change.

Unsurprisingly, the lake was quiet and no one was sitting outside on the boathouse dock. Their loss if they couldn't appreciate a night like this. Smiling to herself, Dani quickly found a seculded area of the lake and discarded her clothing on the shore, wading out into the water before diving in. Perfect.

Manuel was, in a word, restless. Too keyed up to sleep, too tired to get up and do something productive. And Amanda was no help at all - a quick peek at her emotions showed her fast asleep and dreaming about something emotionally neutral. So perhaps a little night air and some exercise would do the trick. He pulled on a pair of pants, foregoing the shirt entirely. He even left his sunglasses behind - at night, with most people asleep, things weren't normally quite so bad.

Hearing a twig snap, Dani turned in the water to see who it was. Judging from the sillouette and the vaguely reddish eyes, it was Manuel. Reaching out with her powers slightly she took a feel for him and received nothing. Definitely Manuel then. Raising an arm, she waved, resisting the temptation to break the peacefulness by yelling.

Manuel could feel Danielle easily. Apparently she was .. taking a swim. The idea held some appeal to Manuel, but the last thing he wanted to do was interrupt someone else's idyll. "Hola." he said quietly, squatting down by the water's edge, not entering it himself. "A good night for a swim."

"Hey," Danielle said softly nodding a greeting, pleased that her hair had grown long enough to trail in the water as she kneeled. "Want to join?" she asked, leaning back to rewet her hair. Manuel was the right kind of company for night swimming, friendly and availible but generally didn't intrude.

Manuel blinked, and then grinned. "If you don't mind...." he said with an amused look. At the lack of protest, he simply and quickly stripped out of his pants and stepped into the water until it covered him to the waist. "Ahhh, this does feel good." he said with a sigh of pleasure. "This was a good idea. You sure I'm not intruding?" he asked her without looking directly at her.

"Of course not. I wouldn't've asked you to, if I didn't mean it," Dani pointed out, purposefully ignoring that Manuel had just flashed her. Knowing Manuel, he had done it intentionally and was looking to get a rise out of her, but beyond basic curiosity she wasn't interested at the moment.

Manuel closed his eyes for a second and just let the feelings overwhelm him for a moment. It felt good to let down the walls, and Danielle had enough emotional discipline that she wasn't going to flood his brain with all of her _crap_. The warm water, the dark sky overhead, and one very naked yet uniniterested Indian girl combined to give Manuel a certain degree of temporary embarrassment. To cover himself, he moved deeper into the water, lest parts of him surface that probably shouldn't.

Making small talk wasn't worth the effort at the moment as they just floated in the warm water. Idly, Dani reached out a little with her powers almost snorting water up her nose as she realized that Manuel had dropped his shields a little. Instead she ended up ungracefuly flipping over in the water, splashing Manuel and generally making a fool of herself.

Manuel gasped as he had picked the _completely_ wrong time to inhale, and got a nosefull of water. Coughing, he righted himself to get the water out of his lungs and the air back _in_. He also pushed his shields back to normal, just to be on the safe side. His body, on the other hand, was tag-teaming with his imagination to give him a couple of truly lovely suggestions of things he could be doing right then. Guiltily, he blocked the link to keep them private.

Laughing at Manuel as he coughed wasn't nice, but Dani couldn't help herself. It wasn't everyday the supposed Don Juan de Marco of Mutant High got water up his nose because he'd been thinking about you. "I'm flattered," she said, calming down although she couldn't make the impish smile go completely away.

Manuel grinned at Danielle. He knew better than to try to lie to her - and he had no real interest in doing so. "You've recovered nicely." he said. "Looking pretty good. Figured you'd catch me just as I was relaxing a little."

"Ain't like I can peek without your permission anyways, you ain't Forge," which was a good thing, really. Not that she didn't like her fellow tribesman, but somehow she couldn't imagine skinny dipping with him. Standing up completely in the water Danielle looked down at herself critically, "You ain't seen me before...could do the ruler test on my hips. It ain't the same."

Manuel looked over at Danielle, since he could tell that she wanted him to. "Nice." he said with open admiration. Forbidden territory, de la Rocha. You know this! "And you're definitely not the same." he said with admiration. She'd lost a great deal of the weight she'd gained from the pregnancy, and picked up some lushness to her figure - not that she really needed it, but it was still attractive to him nonetheless.

Lowering herself back in the water she stretched out again lazily. It was chilly in the night air even though the water was still warm, "Ain't nothing the same, I guess. Ain't ever gonna be again. Guess I gotta stop fighting it," it was said semi-rhetorically.

"Pick your battles." he said somewhat cryptically, sinking down to his neck in the wonderfully warm water. He yawned, then, as his fatigue was starting to catch up with him.

Picking up his cue, Dani headed back to shore to get her clothing, dressing quickly in the night air. "Come on," she instructed, pointedly turning her back to him, "It's getting late."

"What, am I that unpleasant to look upon?" he groused in a friendly way as he came ashore. "Come on. It's not like I care if you see."

"I thought you might need some privacy," she replied, turning around. Just because she didn't care didn't mean that he didn't. It was easier for a girl to hide that she was interested in a guy, "I was trying to be polite. You ain't got nothin' I haven't seen."

"I would _hope_ not!" he said with a laugh. He put on his pants, making a production of things just for her, using the poses and pauses that he remembered the strippers from back home using. Once he was finally decent, he nodded towards the Mansion. "Heading back in?" he said with another yawn.

Laughing, Dani nodded, turning towards the school, "When were you going to tell me about your secret life as an underwear model?"

Manuel laughed again. "That would presume that I wore the stuff!" he said as he too followed Danielle back to the school proper.