carefully executed maneuvers (bendytimed before clone plot) [closed]

[encourage]

Time was difficult enough to figure out on ship when she was having a good day. The mild hangover she'd had this morning (drinking water and forcing herself to down slop from the mess hall had kept it mild) had morphed into a milder headache and light sensitivity that had mostly faded by the time she'd picked up her omnicomm and run across Lash proposing some kind of celebration.

It was in the sensoriums, which was anything but good in Sakura's general opnion, but as she stared down at her omnicomm yet again, she had wondered if it would be a decent distraction to keep her mind off the stupidities of last night and early in the morning. If nothing else, given that she wasn't expected in MedBay today, it would fill in some time before she heard back from Marco. So she'd gone. What was there to lose?

It was only later, after she'd excused herself from the sensoriums and everyone within them, that she realized why she probably hadn't heard from monkey boy. Staring at the desk in her room, she looked between the omnicomm she'd just set down and the one that was on top of a book.

The slow realization that the omnicomm she'd thought had fallen out of her pouch last night hadn't fallen anywhere. She hadn't had her omnicomm with her. She'd walked off with someone else's omnicomm from where Marco lived. With her luck, it was probably Marco's omnicomm.

Sakura shouldered her satchel once more and raced down the stairs. If anyone was around to see her, she probably looked amusingly out of sorts, still dressed for the beach and heading back out within minutes of finally getting home. It didn't take long to make her way over to his residence, relying on shinobi speed to cut down on travel time. She came to a stop at the front door, running her hand through her hair to get it to calm down before she knocked. Best to get this started. By now, she owed a few apologies.

I am never drinking again.

Comments

[livestoannoy]

"Bet I can scout the city better than you can," Marco said, with a needling grin.

He leaned over, trying to get a good look at the shoal Sakura was pointing to. He snorted softly. "That's a pretty pathetic beach," Marco observed, that needling grin still on his face. "No wonder they had the party at the sensoriums."

[encourage]

"Exactly how many bird morphs do you have?" If he was set on needling her, she was set on ignoring it. Mostly.

"The people in the sensoriums were just afraid of really getting wet," she said, moving toward the bridge. Created or not, at least the river had real water. It was why the bath house could exist in the first place.

[livestoannoy]

Marco had to think on that for a moment. "Five? Six?" he said, hazarding a guess. But I wouldn't use all of those for scouting." He doubted a cockatiel would be any use at all for that.

"You do realise that it defeats the point of having a beach party if you can't actually have people on the beach, right?" he said. "It's not all about the water."

[encourage]

"Not suited for it?" she hazarded a guess, sitting down on the low raised sides of the bridge. Working at her sandals, she found herself rolling her eyes again.

"So call it a 'Hill by the River' party. Do you always have to be right?"

[livestoannoy]

"Not always. Plus some morphs are just better for it than others. Unless that morph wouldn't blend it, it's always best to go for the one with the best eyes. You know, hawks, eagles, owls, that sort of thing," he said, leaning against the bridge.

"But hills don't have sand," Marco said, as if that explained everything. "Plus 'hill volleyball' just sounds stupid. Sorry Barbie, but beaches are just cooler than hills." He grinned at her. "And of course I always have to be right. I usually am," he added flippantly.

[encourage]

She hummed something akin to agreement to his first statement. That was a given. If you didn't blend in, you were asking to be eliminated for being where you damn well weren't supposed to be -- according to someone.

"I'm sure you tested the soil of every hill you came across, just to come to that conclusion." She finished pulling her second sandal off, pushing off the short railing of the bridge, feeling the cool (not cold) stone beneath her feet. Real sensations, for a certain value of real. "Usually isn't always," she pointed out, turning away from him as she pulled her shirt off. "Even if that were true, you really go out of your way to discredit yourself half the time."

[livestoannoy]

"Testing for coolness isn't cool," Marco said, keeping an entirely straight face.

As she took her shirt off he watched her back, not saying anything further.

[encourage]

"But checking for sand content is?" She knew what he was talking about, but hey, she was choosing to be scientific.

Folding her shirt, she set it on the bridge wall. "What?" she said, looking back over her shoulder at him when he didn't say anything more. "No witty remark about discrediting yourself being part of your grand master plan? Not that it's a bad one."

She started to step out of her shorts. "Being underestimated can be useful."

[livestoannoy]

Marco rolled his eyes. "That definitely isn't cool either."

Then he blinked at Sakura, realising that she'd noticed him fall silent. "If I tell you, that would ruin the master plan, wouldn't it?" he said quickly.

[encourage]

Folding her shorts to set on top of her shirt, she narrowed her eyes at Marco. "Maybe. Maybe not." She leaned forward, checking relative depths of the water off this end of the bridge.

"You planning on staying up here all afternoon?" Sakura took a few steps backward, coming close to the opposite wall of the bridge.

[livestoannoy]

"Well someone wouldn't let me get any swimwear!" Marco protested, folding his arms.

[encourage]

"Someone's unexpectedly modest," she shot back, flashing him a smile before she took a running step, planted her hands on the bridge side, leaped up, and then pushed out at an angle over the water!

"Aaah!" she shouted before she drew her limbs in tight and pinched her nose shut. Sakura hit the water with a splash, disappearing beneath the surface in a flurry of bubbles.

[livestoannoy]

"I'm not modest, I'd just rather not flash my underwear to anyone walking by," Marco said, before ducking to dodge the splash. He leaned over the edge of the bridge. "And I didn't know you were so desperate to see them!" he called out when Sakura resurfaced.

[encourage]

Sakura had come up some ten feet out from the bridge, angling and kicking for the surface as she hit the bottom of her drop through the water. She ducked back under, tilting her head back so her hair kept off her face. "I'm sorry," she called out, "I can't hear you!"

A blatant lie, not that it bothered her much. "Not like you'd be the first!" she said a moment later, proving she had heard at least his earlier statement. "What, do you think part of ninja preparation is wearing swimtrunks everywhere? My teammates are all guys!"

Kang may have had a point with human modesty -- but just a point. Sakura actually preferred people staying some semblance of modest. There were some things she just didn't need to know about the people around her.

[livestoannoy]

"Ah, so ninjas run around everywhere in their underwear. Sounds like a fun place," Marco called back, grinning. "Hang on, I'm coming down."

Unlike Sakura, Marco wasn't going to just jump. He wasn't completely crazy. Instead he just walked down the side of the bridge, kicking off his shoes and rolling up his jeans. Marco had never been that good at swimming even with swimtrunks, so he wasn't really confident enough to go jumping in fully clothed. Sure, he could probably manage to at least tread water, or maybe stand on the riverbed if it was shallow enough, but he didn't want to risk looking like a complete idiot in front of Sakura.

Find a rock near the edge, Marco sat on top of it, dangling his legs in the water.

[encourage]

Sakura chose not to mention that one of the times this had come up had been during their chuunin exam. She didn't feel like arguing over how justified the exam process was, or how crazy he believed the process to be.

Some part of that stayed in mind as she started swimming again, idly watching Marco take up his perch on a rock. It probably went somewhere beyond modesty, she figured. He'd been confident as the dolphin, but he'd been both quick to "rescue" her when she'd tripped, and morphed back to human awfully close to shore.

She wondered how well he could swim, just as himself.

She dived under the water, swimming back around to near where Marco sat. It was more a matter of walking at that point, so she did, stopping down in front of him. The water level dropped again under the rocks he'd chosen to settle on, which suited her just fine. "The water's pretty shallow on this end," she said conversationally, placing a hand on the rock next to his legs. "You should really come check it out," she added, pushing off the bottom to get a hold of his arm.

With a final push away from the rock with her re-positioned foot, Sakura fully intended to drag Marco down into the water with her.

[livestoannoy]

Marco had been intending to make an incredibly witty retort. That plan was cut short though, when he suddenly found Sakura grabbing his arm and pulling him into the water. He tumbled forward, crashing into the water with a splash.

Now under the water, Marco's less than great swimming skills were about to become pretty apparent. In fact, flailing was the most apt word for it, and the fact that his clothes were now really heavy, dragging at his limbs, was not a help. But he at least wasn't in danger of drowning yet - he'd managed to make his way back up to the surface, gasping, and was now trying to cling onto whatever was the nearest object in an attempt to stay above the water.

Unfortunately, the nearest object happened to be Sakura.

[encourage]

Sakura would have felt a little bad, but she was confident in her own abilities. With Marco flailing, he was obviously uncomfortable with the idea of swimming on his own. Part of her might have wondered at what point you stopped improving yourself because you had easier work-arounds, but she didn't have time to focus on that.

"Marco, you're fine," she said, momentarily keeping him close to prevent his flailing from getting anymore in her way than it was. He was going to end up dunking them both back under the water at this rate.

It was difficult to kick around him, using one arm to help her move backward through the water, but far from impossible. Easier if she'd had him facing the other way, but wishes were horses and this was moving through several feet of water.

As soon as she felt ground hitting her feet, she shifted her hold on him. It was all in the span of a few seconds or so, just long enough she wondered if he wouldn't try to do something about his predicament on his own. "Put your feet down. You can stand here." She kept her tone calming, if part of her was... amused. She felt bad about it, but this was kind of funny.

[livestoannoy]

Once he found solid ground under his feet, Marco finally stopped trying to hold Sakura in a kind of death monkey grip. He eyed Sakura, although the effect was probably rather diminished by the fact that he somewhat resembled a half drowned rat right now.

And he saw that amusement, Sakura. "Ha ha, very funny," he said dryly. "It's so funny I'll think I'll give you an extra 'ha', just this once."

[encourage]

Fully resembled a drowned rat, actually. "It is kind of funny," she pointed out. "You're more comfortable morphing something that can swim than you are swimming as yourself. Have you always been a weak swimmer?"

The humor had dropped out of her voice by the time she was asking him her question.

[livestoannoy]

"Dolphin's have instincts that tell them how to swim," Marco pointed out. "Not to mention flippers. Do you know how much easier it is to swim when you have flippers?" Give him dolphin morph any day.

He looked at her, half expecting her to go and make fun of him for not being able to swim well. She didn't look like she was going to though, so he shrugged. "Pretty much. I used to be even worse."

[encourage]

She paused, trying to envision his worse. Sakura concluded he basically made a show of not drowning quickly, if that was the case. "A lot easier, I'd think. That and webbing, anything to increase surface area."

Human beings weren't exactly equipped to be brilliant swimmers, but there were ways of becoming better. "This is you after taking lessons?"

[livestoannoy]

"Normally I'm not that bad!" he protested, crossing his arms, "Normally I don't have people pushing me in the water--" yeah, he's looking at you there, Sakura "--and I'm not jumping in fully dressed. You just..surprised me."

More like startled, but Marco wasn't going to say that.

[encourage]

"Uh-huh," she said, doubtful. "I'm sure it's regularly surprising when someone you're watching swim pulls you into the water, too."

She stepped back, then pushed off, arms keeping steady while her legs propelled her backward. "I'd never see that coming, personally."

[livestoannoy]

"No, why would I be surprised?" Marco said, sarcastic. "Obviously someone always tries to drown me whenever I go near a body of water."

He narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. "Why did you do that, anyway?"