2288, UNPC Universal Calendar, Florida Coastline, CONUS.

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This one is catching a rewrite.

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"You really think I stick out that much?" Kate asked, turned towards him as she sat on a towel leaning back on her hands, not looking at him, but rather past him. Her long black hair was pulled into a ponytail, which hung to below her shoulders, with a few runaways streaked across her forehead and face.

"We both do, nothing we can do about it" Anton said gazing out across the water, the Schattenwulf looming on the horizon a little over three miles away. The sand was hot beneath the towel, but it wasn't particularly humid out, so the sand wasn't particularly sticky.

"All because a special someone decided they wanted to take a dip" Anton thought, "At least it's an easy job"

"I feel oddly naked without my ECA" Kate said, making quick eye contact with him, then panning her eyes back to who they were supposed to be paying attention to.

He flicked his eyes to her bare chest, focus falling on where her "UNPC Charlie Series Augment - NO MRI" tattoo, followed by her serial number was covered up with a hard to remove makeup, the skin appearing unblemished.

He scoffed, smiling, then lifted his gaze and looked back out across the water.

"You basically are naked," He shrugged, then grinned "we should do this more often."

Kate rolled her eyes, "I'm wearing the exact same thing you are, albeit a different size"

"uh-huh" he hummed, "I was there when you bought it and tried it on" he turned to her and gave her his best shit-eating grin. "And I'm loving every bit of it." He said.

The beach was sparse, with 50' of open area between everyone's personal space.

"Do you enjoy it when I wear a swimsuit meant for a man?" she asked after a lapse of silence.

He looked over, panning his eyes over her body, then shrugged, "yeah, I do."

She grinned at him, her face entirely red. "So tomboys, huh?" she asked.

"I guess that's what my asexual brain is into, little head doesn't care as long as it's a nude female, so that's nothing to go off of." Anton said, making her laugh.

"That's okay, I'm happy to make you happy" She replied, leaning forward and staring into her lap with a shy expression.

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They sat in silence, watching who they were supposed to, and enjoying the nice weather.

"Can you be honest with me for a little bit? No holding back?" Kate asked.

"I suppose" he cocked an eyebrow.

"What's your ideal woman, like aesthetically?" she asked.

"Aesthetically?" he squinted.

"Yeah, like your type of sorts, what would be perfect in your eyes?" she added, studying his facial expressions, which were oddly sparse for the joyful Austrian.

He nodded, considering the question, and flicking his eyes to a teenage boy who was running down the beach to catch a runaway soccer ball before looking back across the horizon.

"Tall" He started, then paused. "Short hair, deeper than average voice" he paused again, doing a 3 point check around them. "small breasts, broad shoulders, long legs" he rattled off to Kate, who was listening with a smile.

"A overall boyish appearance, but with female anatomy, and still obviously female" he shrugged. "Don't know why I'm wired that way" he said after a pause.

"So like a guy, but with tits and a cooter?" She asked, making him almost bust out laughing.

"Yeah, something like that" he chuckled.

"I guess I could cut my hair" she shrugged, grin still plastered on her face, vivid blue eyes seemingly brighter in the sunlight.

He picked his hand up and put it back down, almost in a "calm down" motion. "You're perfect as-is, I wouldn't change a thing about you" He told her.

"daww" she said sarcastically, making him roll his eyes.

A young man staring at her caught her eye, and she waved at him, making him turn away quickly, face reddened.

"Americans are so uptight" Kate scoffed.

"It's a shame that they're not as free as they think they are" he replied, scanning around them once more.

She looked at him with a questioning expression, and he caught it.

"Well, it's legal, but it's still taboo. Sure, it's legal here on the beach, it's public property. But at a privately owned swimming pool? You'd probably get kicked out" he told her. "They really think these things are all that" He said, reaching out and running just the tips of his knuckles against her right inverted nipple.

"Idiots, who doesn't want to look at boobs?" she asked, catching the young man staring at her again, but letting it roll off of her with a smile and shake of the head, knowing he probably saw Anton touch her.

"Glad I can desensitize men to them, one titty at a time." She giggled, and they shared a laugh.

"Did you mean that?" she asked after a while.

He hummed, as if to ask "mean what."

"About not changing a thing about me?" she asked.

He nodded, reaching out and putting his left hand on her right thigh, "not a thing" he told her, doing it twice.

She blushed, then looked down at her lap again, her facial muscles growing tired from the smile he'd plastered on her face.

"Blushy blushy" he teased her, making her giggle, and her small breasts sway as she sat hunched.

"Like you wouldn't if I wore a pair of men's boxers" She said, turning her head towards him just in time to catch is blush.

She gave him an expression that said "told you so."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, I would" he smiled, looking at the ground next to her.

She kissed him on the cheek, and put her smaller hand on top of his, running her fingers across it softly.

The Schattenwulf just off the coast growled, charging its supercapacitors, ensuring they're always ready to fire. The note that rippled across the waves didn't have the accompanying staggering of booms that came from a salvo, so it didn't put the duo of augments on edge.

"The wolf is hungry" Anton mused, looking across the beach to the reason they were here.

The director of the United Nations Peace Coalition, William Kiesel, stood with his wife next to him, his hands on his hips, gazing out across the water to the ship he'd been aboard a few hours prior.

"I want to go to the beach with you sometime." She said softly. "Just us, no work, no worries." She shook her head.

That sounds.... Nice.