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]

"So your teammate - the guy who cursed him. Do you think he make him leave?" Marco asked. There was something...something missing in what she was telling him, but he couldn't figure out what.

"So you need seals for anything external, is that it? You don't need it to punch walls, because it's not the wall you're manipulating, it's the hardness of your hand?" he said, trying to grasp the workings.

[encourage]

"... No," she said eventually, letter her hand fall through the water. "Sasuke-kun left of his own initiative. He didn't feel he could achieve the kind of strength he needed to avenge his Clan by staying in Konoha."

It took more than Marco would probably ever know to admit that much. It still hurt, constricting her chest as she remembered the last time she'd seen Sasuke. Possibly the last time she ever would.

She moved on, focusing on the mechanics of what she did with a singlemindedness that spoke of avoidance. "In a way. I have to cushion myself from the shock, but in that case I'm mitigating how much force I'm releasing at one point. Properly applied, results can be impressive. An average hit at decent control can break ground for seven to ten meters in the direction I'm aiming, with an average of two to three meters of depth. Normally closer to two," she added, shrugging. "It depends on the bedrock and how much top-soil I'm dealing with."

[livestoannoy]

"Or bring down the Great Wall of China," Marco pointed out. "And wait, avenge his Clan? Avenge who? For what?"

[encourage]

"Why do you need to know?" Her voice dropped low. This wasn't something she was offering up, just because he'd picked up on her slip up.

[livestoannoy]

"Well it's not every day that you hear about someone who goes around desperately trying to get enough power so they can reap vengeance," Marco said dryly. But by now, he wasn't that set on learning the details. He couldn't blame her for not wanting to give up a teammate's secrets. And while they weren't even - yet - at least she'd told him something about herself. Something more than he'd known before.

[encourage]

"Yes, it's really odd the lengths some people will go to for family."

[livestoannoy]

"Going to extreme lengths for your family isn't odd," Marco said flatly.

[encourage]

"I know." She turned away, dismissing herself from this conversation. She was defending Sasuke, she realized, by playing off Marco's own history with his mother. And his father. "Especially not for you."

It wasn't fair of her. She knew that.

She couldn't fully bring herself to care.

Slipping back under the water, she kicked out and angled around, deciding she'd had enough with dwelling on the past she couldn't change. Marco wanted equivalencies? She could at least give him a few cause and effects. If he didn't move, she'd start with instruction on the result of someone pulling your legs out from under you. He was already soaking. Might as well get moving to warm himself up a little -- even if the air was never really cool on ship.

[livestoannoy]

Hey, Marco had already been nearly drowned once today. He was not wanting to let Sakura pull him under the water again, thank you very much. He moved to the side, eying Sakura as she swam under the water.

[encourage]

Spoilsport. It wouldn't have been difficult to follow him, especially not since she was a relatively strong swimmer. She called chakra into her hands, creating an invisible surface area between her cupped palms, shoving water in his direction. He'd probably feel that strong nudge of water, if it wouldn't do anything to him.

She surface shortly after, tossing her head back to avoid the inconvenience of hair in her face. "Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill," she said conversationally. She was already pronouncing it much better than early that morning. (She may have been practicing in her own head.) "I don't remember reading about multiple sentient species native to Earth. Where's he from?"

[livestoannoy]

The wave of water pushed Marco back a little, and while she was still under he rolled his eyes. Sure, show off your amazing ninja powers at the person who's not good at swimming, why don't you.

At the sudden change in subject, he blinked. "Ax isn't from Earth," Marco said. "He's an Andalite. I don't know what their planet's called, they always just call it the 'Andalite Home World'."

[encourage]

Hey, not her fault if Negi had everyone going on about water splitting earlier today. She just hadn't applied herself then.

There were a lot of things she'd have liked to ask, but it got right back into the dance they were doing earlier. Which left her with... a lot less to work with. "How did you me--" She sighed, irritated. "He's a nice shade of blue."

[livestoannoy]

"Yes, he's blue," Marco said, rolling his eyes. "Glad to know you at least managed to notice that despite being completely smashed. Speaking of which - you are so not someone I expected to be the kind to go and get trashed."

[encourage]

"I wasn't trying," she said defensively. "I wasn't even drinking alcohol until Kang offered."

[livestoannoy]

"Kang offered," Marco said flatly.

[encourage]

Oh boy. "Yes," she said dryly, "Pretty sure that's who." This argument she at least knew was coming -- or rather, Marco not wanting to hear about anything related to Kang. Fit with Sakura's program perfectly well, considering what she and Kang had talked about last night. (Marco would probably find the forty-year-old virgin thing amusing, if it were anyone but Kang. Or maybe even with Kang.

And now she was thinking about sex, and that seriously had to stop.)

She circled closer again, trying not to look bothered by whatever was going through her mind. She failed, but she was trying. "Look, I'm sorry. Who knew what -- okay, I don't actually know the alcohol content of whiskey. But it's bound to be at least similar to sake, so whatever, I should have known better." Lightweight through and through.

[livestoannoy]

Marco's scowl made it pretty clear that he wasn't happy to hear about Kang. "Well, good to know that Kang can get you to go drinking stuff you normally wouldn't," he said, sarcastic.

[encourage]

"Come on," she said, opting to outright ignore his statement, "I don't want to talk about Kang. You don't want to talk about Kang. You don't even want to swim. We're getting out."

Sakura brushed by him, heading toward the rocks jumbled by the shallower part of the incidental sandbar. "Besides, I might as well fall for one of the shinobi vices," she said, rolling her eyes. With Marco behind her, at least he couldn't see. "Since gambling's pointless on ship, and women are right out."

[livestoannoy]

"Wait, you're going?!" Marco said, sounding a little panicked as he stared at her with wide eyes. Fuck, he really had screwed this date up, hadn't he? And as much he'd gotten annoyed with her and started half of the arguments they'd had today, he didn't actually want her to go away.

[encourage]

She had said we hadn't she? Sakura paused, looking back at Marco over her shoulder. He made absolutely no sense!

"You want to stay in the water?"

[livestoannoy]

Now Marco hovered in the water, confused. "So you...don't want to end the date?" he said slowly.

[encourage]

Sakura turned back to face him, leaning against one of the rocks. She wondered if he realized just how defensive he came off sometimes, just to have times like this, where he sounded next to vulnerable.

Thank goodness it was more general insecurity. Marco at least didn't strike her as the kind of idiot to make big emotional pitfalls at the drop of a hat. So if it wasn't exactly about her, was it the idea of rejection?

She thought back to his outburst after they'd talked with Analog. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, and it bothers him. Like watching Naruto not wanting to screw up.

"Hey, monkey boy," she said, "I said we, didn't I? Come on. Even if morphing is the cure for the common cold, you're still going to give me nightmares if you just keep standing there."

She didn't owe him anything. Not really. It was the whole liberating part about this, that there wasn't some obligation or strict code of honour she had to follow, outside of her own. It just kind of sucked for her (or lucked out for him) that her sense of social nicety was the kind that didn't go out of its way to make other people feel bad.

Not that teasing was out of the question. "At least shed a few layers and give your clothes a chance to dry. You'll be dragging half the river with you at this rate." Practically speaking, it made sense. She fully expected Marco to just deal with turning into a walking human water dispenser.

[livestoannoy]

Hesitantly, Marco grinned. Okay so...she wasn't leaving. That was good. He could still save this. Somehow. He'd just have to avoid talking about their pasts, Kang, or the fact that he was completely and utterly unprepared for this entire thing. He could do this. Somehow.

"Ah, sneaky. This is all part of your elaborate plan to try and see me with my shirt off, isn't it?" Marco teased back, as he waded towards the shore. Teasing was good, he could do teasing.

[encourage]

"Consider it part of an even more elaborate apology for making you miss an all important social function." She tapped a finger on her lips, thinking back over what else the girls had been doing earlier that day. "I rate you ten out of ten for waterlogging. I officially believe you're the most soaked person I've met to date."

People were usually in all different states of disrobing at the baths. She turned back around, scaling the rock and making her way up to the dry dirt of the hillside.

[livestoannoy]

"How come your apology involves me taking my clothes off?" Marco said, following her up the rock.

And oh man, he was seriously wet. He shook his head a bit to try and dislodge at least some of the water, and moved over to the nearest patch of grass to plonk down on it. After a moment's pause, he pulled off sopping wet hoodie, then peeled off his t-shirt, tossing them on top of a nearby bush.