I'm out of my mind. I'm starting yet another multi-chapter fic.

I seriously need to update those that seemed to have been abandoned. I mean, they haven't been touched in months!

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN TOTAL DRAMA.

The sun shone brightly, marking the first day of summer.

And the Gwen Fahlenbock hated it. Not that she was a fan of school, but summer? As in, bright sunlight, listening to pretentious people lounge around while comparing tans and ridiculous swimsuits, and hanging out in the beach?

Well, unfortunately, her summer seemed to be heading for that direction.

The goth girl blew dyed bangs from her eyes and proceeded to carry her boxes from her porch to the back of the van parked in front of their gray house. She set the boxes and her black duffel bag down and sighed.

Her dad bribed her to take his boss's son to hang out in the beach for a couple of weeks, where he had some old beach house or something over there.

Gwen knew that her dad's boss was the father of Cody Anderson, some guy who happened to be in her grade, though he looked like he should still be hanging out with middle-schoolers. Her dad told her that apparently, Cody was very lonely since his parents were going to Hawaii for the entire summer and they wanted to be alone, since it was their anniversary and it would be a full of reminiscing moments about their honeymoon, which is strictly not something you'd want your kid to be present for.

Cody couldn't spend his summer with his pals, since all of them were either going to tourist spots with their families or some weird comic book convention, which he was forbidden to go to because his parents thought that it was a cult-related thing. And he didn't have much friends, so his options were pretty limited to begin with anyway.

Of course, it was no coincidence that the boy had a crush on her.

And, no, Gwen wasn't being presumptuous. Last year, during Valentine's Day, he flooded her locker with love notes, cards, weird coconut-chocolates, and (for some reason) a badly Photoshopped picture of them, Cody's head attached to some shirtless, muscular man's body, carrying the slight frame of a deeply tanned, bikini-clad woman, to which Gwen's head was haphazardly pasted to.

Fun times. In fact, the only thing that could be more fun than that is a root canal.

"Hey, Gwen," the geek himself said, suddenly popping out of the bushes and nearly giving the goth girl a heart attack. Thankfully, her heart managed to control itself, but her motor skills faltered, and she dropped the box, sending its contents to tumble down to the ground.

"Cody?" Gwen said wearily. "What the hell were you doing in the bushes?"

Cody grinned sheepishly, showing off the gap between his teeth. "Um, well, my parents dropped me off early, so..." The boy swallowed, as if he realized that his actions were somewhat disturbing. "...uh, I decided to watch you for a bit?"

Gwen groaned. "That's really creepy, Cody." She began to bend down to pick up some of the items, but she realized that she would be giving Cody a nice view of her rear end, so she added, "Help me out here, will you?"

Cody scrambled out of the bushes and began to pick Gwen's stuff up. Unluckily for the goth girl, she dropped the box containing her art supplies, with fragile jars of paint. Blue paint trickled to the sidewalk.

"Wow, I'm really sorry, Gwen," the scrawny boy apologized, fixing up everything and putting them back to the box.

"Hi, kids," Gwen's mom said, emerging from the house. She managed a tired smile. "Off so soon?"

Cody smiled at her politely. "Well, yeah, Mrs. Fahlenbock. I mean, the more time I can spend with your daughter, the better, right?" And he attempted to put his arm around Gwen, but the goth girl threateningly raised her right knee. Cody withdrew his arm immediately. He knew what that meant.

Gwen's mother raised an eyebrow at her daughter, who scowled back in response.

"Well, okay," Mrs. Fahlenbock said finally. "Have fun."

And with that, she retreated to the house as fast as she could. Apparently, Gwen wasn't the only one being creeped out by the techie teen.

Cody scratched the back of his neck. "As I was saying...I'm sorry about your art supplies. Maybe I can, uh, make it up to you later?"

Oh, well. So she had to spend approximately three weeks with this creeper. Not a big deal, at all. Gwen forced a false smile on her lips. "It's okay, Cody. Just...get in the van, okay?"

"Anything you say, Gwen," Cody replied, stretching her name and trying to sound suave. The goth girl pretended not to notice, shoved the rest of her items in the back of the van, and slammed the back door shut. Gwen gave an acknowledging nod to her scrawny companion, and sat on the driver's seat.

"You sure you don't want me to drive?" Cody asked his pale companion.

Gwen fought the urge to roll her eyes. "I can drive, Cody. And it's my dad's car, so if anything bad happens to it, I'll be grounded for a month." Then again, wrecking her father's car might just make up for this stupid trip he set her to be in, just so he could please his dumb boss. She scowled, and jammed the keys to the ignition, starting the old van.

"I can drive, too," Cody defended himself. Then he smiled. "But I'm sure you can drive better. I mean, you're better than everybody in the whole galaxy!"

Kill me, Gwen thought. She sharply swerved the car, almost causing Cody to be strangled by his seat belt.

The goth girl was plagued by fatigue. No, seriously, it was all she could do to not pass out at the wheel. Maybe she shouldn't have watched all those slasher flicks the previous night...

And Cody wasn't helping. "Hey, Gwen?"

Gwen clenched her teeth. "Yes, Cody?"

"Are you a terrorist?"

Gwen pursed her dark lips, not even bothering to reply. Cody took her silence as consent to continue his pick-up line.

"Because, baby, you're the bomb!"

Gwen smashed her head on the steering wheel. Fortunately, they were stuck in a traffic jam, so she didn't lose control of the car or collided with an innocent pedestrian. Unfortunately, she was stuck here for a few hours with the bozo, give or take. And even more unfortunately, the act of slamming her head on the steering wheel released a really loud BEEP from the van, which was enough to agitate the drivers into honking their horns back.

A few hours later (still cooped up in a car with Cody), Gwen felt like she was ready to go insane.

Thankfully, she made it to the beach in one piece, and more importantly, so did Cody. (Gwen had been just about ready to yank the steering wheel off the dashboard and shove it somewhere painful.)

"So," Gwen mumbled. "Where's this beach house of yours?"

Cody fluttered his eyelashes at her like a lovesick preteen girl, horribly trying to flirt. "I'm glad you asked." Much to Gwen's relief, he simply gave her directions without much problems and/or awkward love confessions.

The goth girl stopped the car. "Is this it?"

The 'house' was huge. Actually, it was more of a mansion. It was predominantly yellow, with skylights instead of a roof. Luxurious outdoor furniture littered the area like grated Parmesan on a plate of spaghetti.

"Heck, yeah!" Cody exclaimed, grinning. He unbuckled his seat belt and ran to the house like a little kid. "Maybe we should change into our swimsuits," he added, shamelessly sounding suggestive. Fumbling with his abnormally large ring of keys attached to a tiny Darth Vader key chain, he finally found the correct one and stuck the keys on the latch. The geek opened the double front doors with a flourish. "This is it, baby!" His voice awkwardly echoed due to the size of the place.

"Terrific." Gwen's voice was dry. "Thanks for inviting me here."

Cody smiled, showing off his gap once again. "So...swimsuits?"

"Don't be such a pervert." She rummaged her duffel bag and pulled out a very modest one-piece swimsuit. It was frumpy and pink, but it was the only swimsuit she had other than the admittedly skimpy bikini she usually wore every time she was in the beach.

"Oh." The disappointment in Cody's voice was unmistakable, but he smiled widely again. "I'll go change!" He rushed up the staircase, tugging his heavy bags with him. With the enthusiasm of a little kid during Christmastime, he sprinted from each step of the stairs to the other.

Despite herself, a little smile crawled up Gwen's features. Cody wasn't really that bad, she mused. If only he could tone down the creepy flirting a tiny bit.

Feeling her spirits lift a bit, she went to the bathroom and changed into her bathing suit.

Like the summary suggests...this is a Codette and Gweoff fic, two pairings that I had hardly even acknowledged before. It contains a lot of Gwody friendship, though...anyway, please review, mes amis. :P