trans_9 | Splish Splash, I was taking a bath (Bendy timed to just after the weddings)

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Splish Splash, I was taking a bath (Bendy timed to just after the weddings)

Not everybody wanted to go to the consummation huts straight off the bat. Which meant if they wanted to get cleaned up, they needed another spot to do so in.

Luckily, the city had just such a place: the great public baths. They were rather immense. And open, since the Moai didn't have much in the way of nudity taboos. There were private stalls around the edges, though, for those who weren't quite so open. Or just wanted to do a little 'private' bathing (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). It's traditional for the baths to take a while. After all, pretty much everybody here has just gotten married! Enjoy!

(Oh. And your clothes are going to disappear. Nothing personal, the Rapa Nui just want to make sure you have something clean and dry to change into when you've bathed. Isn't that nice?)

((Yep, there are public baths in the city. Have fun with it! And Jono's still outside the city. I just want to be able to get notifs after I ask for no notifications on the main post.))

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Sam paused, giving that some thought. "Okay, I haven't had to do the speedo thing. Or anybody who turned into things from the Black Lagoon. Had an aquatic ghost once. That was...not fun."

And of course Sam saying he hasn't done the speedo is doing fun things to his imagination. Argh.

"Aquatic ghost? How do you fight that?"

He'd apologize if he knew. Though Xander probably didn't want to let that be known at all.

Sam sighed, grimacing. "The ghost was of a kid who was mad at these two other kids who had accidentally drowned him and let his body sink to the bottom of a lake. So the kid was killing family members of the one guy until he walked into the lake to save his own grandson."

It was one of those cases that Sam hated. There'd been no choice.

Yeah that was one of those statements that no power on this Earth, or universe or whatever would make Xander say out loud.

He grimaced at that as he had to move past Sam to grab a scrubby item to get the rest of the paint off of himself, "Shit, we dealt with a few people like that ourselves. Did the grandson make it?" He didn't have high hopes for the old man.

"Yeah, he did," Sam replied with a nod. "Dean had gone in after him and was able to pull him to the surface once the ghost let go."

It was weird, being able to talk about Hunting. But at least the earlier cases were easier to remember, even with Jess's death.

He turned, grabbing a scrubby thing to go to work on his own paint. "Sometimes you get cases where you can keep anybody else from dying. Too often, though, we're just not there in enough time."

Xander nodded as he focused on scrubbing his armsm shoulders and chest, "Yeah tell me about it. The one good thing about the year I graduated? Lowest body count for our senior class. Well, till graduation." But that was a battle, and unfortunately there was no way to avoid causalities like Larry.

He floundered a little, turning while trying to scrub his back.

Sam shook his head. "Man, that is no way to go through school. Not that I ever stuck around in one school long enough to even HAVE a class, really."

He watched Xander, amused for a moment, before shoving his hand away. "Let me do that. You'll break something like that."

"Oh it's just how it was, was better having Buffy there though."

Xander then froze up at his next words, and dropped the scrubby into the water. Crap. Crap.

"Oh no, no, don't want to trouble you, I'm good."

"Look, you aren't going to do anybody any good if you strain your shoulder trying to get your back." Sam rolled his eyes. "Though, you know, pretty sure you haven't gotten any paint there."

He nudged at Xander's shoulder. "Come on. It'll take two minutes for me to do it."

Xander tried to speak, and only managed a faint squeak. He kept his mouth shut and finally nodded. And well, some might have smeared or spattered back. He thought he felt something anyway, and should be thorough.

There actually was a little. Sam had no idea how the hell that happened, but he shrugged and started washing Xander's back. Which was actually kind of nice.

It wasn't, you know, intimate or anything. It was just washing someone's back. You did that for friends, right? Right.

It was nice, and not in oh helpful friend way. Not completely, and Xander will deny the content sigh he gave as he felt Sam's hands and the scrub slide over his shoulderblades and spine.

Sam couldn't help but chuckle at that, working the scrubber over Xander's back. He hadn't figured out that Xander would probably return the favor in a few minutes.

Xander however was thinking of that, and he gulped.

"Thanks, and uh you scrub my back, I could scrub yours if you need it?"

He paused, then nodded. "Yeah. I...that would be okay." It was the scars that were the part he wasn't sure he wanted Xander to see. But maybe he wouldn't actually say anything.

He offered the scrubby thing, then turned his back. Which, of course, exposed the six whip scores across his back. The one on his spine was below the water.

Xander didn't say anything, but he did frown after he caught sight of the marks. He knew they both had a hard life, but he wondered if maybe in some ways, it was easier having Buffy, Willow, Giles and so many helping. Didn't Sam just have his brother mostly?

He had taken the scrub from Sam, and slowly started to wash over his back. His free hand briefly reached out toward the scars before sliding down and away again.

"Just uh let me know if anything's sore?"

Sam let his head drop forward, exposing his back better. "They don't really bother me unless the weather's being weird. Luckily, on Stacy, there's not been a problem."

Xander nodded, "Yeah, I've almost forgotten what thunderstorms are like." He continued scrubbing Sam's back, drawing long lines over shoulders and back. He was so focused on it that he didn't realize how lingering the contact was becoming, or how low.

For some reason, the lingering really didn't bother Sam. Not as much as maybe it should have been, at least. The low, on the other hand, made him reach back and snag Xander's wrist, pulling it back up. "Not there," he said, voice shaking slightly.

Xander's eye widened, and he spazzed a little, his features coloring. King of the Cretins strikes again.

"Oh man, uh sorry, sorry! I wasn't thinking. Uh yeah, yeah we can pretend that didn't happen and I think you're all done." He dropped the scrubber into the water and stepped back from Sam.

He'd probably have laughed if he could have seen Xander's face. Actually, he did laugh a little as he shook his head, turning back around to sit. "Nah, it's just....there's a scar along my spine, low down. You may have seen it." Given all the scars, it would have been difficult for him not to see it. "It's a reminder of...a really, really bad time in my life, that's all."

Xander did, but again he wasn't going to ask.

"Yeah I got that, wasn't going to ask," he nodded, gesturing to his left eye or really the empty socket that remained. Both had their share of battle scars.

"Was a bad time for us too. Didn't get much better for a while after that either." Between Buffy storming the castle without a plan and getting some of the Potentials killed along with his injuries, and then the casualities they lost in the last battle of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. "Lost my hometown a short time afterwards, and uh... the girl I almost married."

Sam glanced at empty socket and nodded, seeming to relax a bit. Xander's scar really didn't bother him, somehow. But, then, he hadn't been there for it.

Actually, he'd completely stopped watching Buffy while he'd been at Stanford. He kind of wondered, now, what he'd missed.

"Sucks," he said, shaking his head in commiseration. "I don't know about hometowns, honestly, but I know about losing someone you would have married." Even if Jess's loss hadn't been that acute in a while now.

Basically a whole lot of 'it got worse'.

Xander nodded, "Yeah I think you guys said something about being on the road a lot? I wouldn't have minded that. Even tried the road trip after high school. Only got as far as Oxnard when the engine fell out from under me."

He fidgeted a little, "We were trying again with it after I stood her up at the altar, long story, involved demons with crystal balls and future visions."

Funny. Sounded a lot like Sam's life.

"In some ways, it's all right," Sam conceded. Not that he'd tell Dean that. "But you don't ever put down roots anyway. You have to be careful not to go back to the same places you went before. At least, if you worked a job there. It...gets lonely."

He shook his head slightly. "I'm sorry you lost her. It sounds like it could have been a good thing."

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