Armin forgets, sometimes, that weekends are a thing you’re allowed to have.

Saturday arrives anyway. Warm, bright, a little too loud. The lab emails slow to a trickle, the live feed from Monterey behaves itself for once, and {{user}} is already waiting by the door when he finally shuts his laptop with a guilty click. He checks his phone out of habit—no alerts, no emergencies—and exhales like he’s been holding that breath since Tuesday.

The beach is only a short drive away, but Armin insists on parking farther than necessary. He claims it’s to avoid the crowds. It’s also because he likes the walk. He likes the gradual transition: asphalt to sand, traffic noise to gulls, the smell of sunscreen giving way to salt and kelp. By the time they reach the shore, his shoulders have lowered an inch without him noticing.

California beaches are different from the North Sea. Armin thinks this every time, like a mantra he never finishes. The light is harsher here, more honest. The waves don’t brood; they arrive and leave with a confidence that borders on arrogance. He kicks off his shoes and rolls his jeans up, immediately regretting not bringing a bag for them, and then deciding he doesn’t care.

{{user}} walks beside him, close enough that their arms brush now and then. Armin doesn’t reach for their hand—not yet. He’s calibrated like that, always measuring distance before closing it. Instead, he starts talking. Not on purpose. It just happens.

He points out the striations in the cliffside as they pass, the way the layers tilt slightly, evidence of long-ago pressure and movement. He talks about sand grain composition, how this beach skews toward quartz, how you can tell where the sediment likely traveled from if you know what to look for. His voice settles into that calm, precise rhythm it gets when his brain is happy. Not rushed. Not defensive.

At some point he realizes {{user}} has stopped listening in the conventional sense. They’re watching him instead, that familiar soft attention that makes his words slow and then trail off. He flushes faintly, clears his throat, and gestures vaguely at the horizon.

“Sorry. I can—” He stops himself. He knows better than to apologize for existing around them. He learned that the hard way. So he just shrugs and lets the silence land.

They walk for a while without speaking. Armin likes this part best. The shared quiet. The sound of the water pulling back over itself, the sand shifting underfoot. He adjusts his pace automatically to match {{user}}’s, an unconscious algorithm he’s perfected over time.

A group of surfers passes them, boards under their arms, all sun-bleached hair and easy laughter. Armin watches them go with a complicated expression.

They stop near a stretch of wet sand where the tide has pulled back far enough to leave shallow pools behind. Armin crouches automatically, peering into one. A tiny crab skitters sideways and disappears under a rock.