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]

"Wait, that makes even less sense. Hawks aren't good long distance fliers. They're build for gliding, not endless flapping, and unless you've got a lot of decent thermals around they just wont have the energy to keep flying that hard. What kind of weird bird do you have in your world?!"

And she was right - Marco definitely didn't like the sound of the Yamanaka. "Excuse me? They control people?" he said, reeling back.

[encourage]

"My bet would be thermals. They're not big flappers, not from anything I remember. Hey, don't ask me to make it make sense to you. I took care of the birds from time to time, I had nothing to do with training or logic behind what they do."

Her frown stayed in place. "I told you there was more than one way. It's not permanent. It can't be," she explained, feeling a little guilty that she was willing to talk about Ino's Clan technique at all. No cost to her, right? If his reaction was a little gratifying. "They're literally planting their consciousness in another body for a while. Their body's left behind, without a conscious mind to guide it. Do you get it? It's as good as having someone black out on you. Their technique's unusable without people there to back them up and guard their body until they come back."

[livestoannoy]

"I don't care if they're blacked out. I wouldn't want anyone controlling my body. Not ever," he said flatly. It was enough to make his skin crawl. If it it wasn't as total as a Yeerk's control, even if it made them vulnerable, even the host wasn't aware. The idea still terrified him.

[encourage]

"It's not absolute. You can fight them off, forcing them back into their own body." She didn't add that this was why the technique was best for short periods of time, often in having a "teammate" turn on the rest of their team, killing while manipulating that element of surprise.

No reason to make him especially paranoid. "The Clans all have individual techniques that define them," she continued conversationally. "The Clans as a whole are older than any of our current nations."

[livestoannoy]

"And that's supposed to...what? Make me feel better?" he wring the t-shirt tightly, his knuckles turning white as he practically tried to squeeze it to death. "Look, can we just...not talk about how you guys regularly use mind control as a battle technique?"

He might have appreciated into information about clans another time. Now, thinking about how there was apparently a whole clan dedicated to controlling people, it just made him feel sick.

[encourage]

Welcome to her world. She eyed him out of the corner of her eyes, then let the topic drop. She wondered if she would ever mention Katsuyu to him. Probably not.

"Nice weather we're having," she said straightfaced.

[livestoannoy]

Marco sent her a dirty look. "Ha ha," he said, with a roll of the eyes. "Next time, I vote that we go play video games instead of spending all our time going on about all this depressing stuff."

[encourage]

"As payback for pulling you in the water? You're cruel. At least you've been swimming before." She crossed her arms, looking back over to her clothing. She was drying, little by little. "Though if we skip the video part and just go for electronic games, like Simon Says..." she trailed off. Howard had introduced her to that one, and even if he'd pretty much kicked her ass at it, Sakura had been practicing during calm hours in MedBay.

She could probably kick ass at Simon Says. Her realization for what either of them had been saying hit a second too late. "Next time?"

[livestoannoy]

"Simon Says?" Marco said, incredulous. "That's not a video game! Not to mention that compared to real video games, it's boring." Okay, he definitely had to introduce her to video games somehow. Because he could not let her go on thinking that Simon Says of all things was one.

"Uh," Marco said, only just realising himself what he'd actually said. "If you want a next time?"

[encourage]

She was proud of her ability to mimic flashing lights, Marco! It was downright rude to take that away from her. "I didn't say it was a video game," she said. "Hence dropping the video part of video game."

She didn't know. For one, this hadn't been anything close to what she expected a date to be like -- even if her idea was pretty much limited to walking and eating together at the restaurants they largely didn't have. More-over, she hadn't been exaggerating when she'd told Kang she found Marco annoying. He was annoying. He went out of his way to be annoying.

But saying yes to shut him up had been different than she'd even led Kang to believe. Sakura didn't like being forced into corners anymore than the next person, and damned if you do damned if you don't situations were particularly vexing.

Then there was the fact this had been more like an extended arguing session tied in with a little companionship than anything else. She doubted tossing in a competitive game would change that much. Did she want to make a bid for someone else's version of normalcy? That's all dates really were. On Earth, that apparently stood in as pre-arranged time to meet with a friend. That'd be fine, wouldn't it?

"What kind of video games are we talking about?" she said at last.

[livestoannoy]

Well, this hadn't been anything close to what Marco had expected a date to be like either. So hey, at least in that regard they were pretty much even.

And you'd always had the option to say no, Sakura.

"You know, basic action games, strategy, rpgs. Depends what you like," he said, shrugging. And hoping that she'll actually go for it.

[encourage]

"Arpegees?" His clarifications didn't actually clarify anything, if she realized part of that was asking the wrong kind of question. "So you're telling me that what they're like depends on an opinion I don't have because I've never played any."

She sent him a look. A look that said, You know that sounds stupid, right? "And to know what I like I then probably have to play some of these games." She paused. "Where does Trivial Pursuit fall in all of that?"

[livestoannoy]

Marco grinned. "Don't knock it till you've tried it," he said cheekily. "And seriously, Trivial Persuit? That's not a video game either, that's a board game. And also less fun."

[encourage]

"You play it on a video screen! That's close enough for me," she said, crossing her arms. "Have you even played Trivial Pursuit?"

[livestoannoy]

"Not normally you don't," Marco said, rolling his eyes. "And yes, I've played Trivial Pursuit. Everyone's played Trivial Pursuit. It's like the standard board game, along with Monopoly and Scrabble.

[encourage]

"Why do you keep calling them bored games?"

[livestoannoy]

"Because they're played on boards, duh," Marco said, not realising that Sakura was mishearing 'board' as 'bored'. "Don't you guys have those either?"

It was beginning to sound like ninjas just hadn't gotten around to inventing fun, period.

[encourage]

"Aah," she said, finally getting it. "We have Shogi and Go. Renju and Suguroko too. They're mostly all strategy games, nothing like Trivial Pursuit. I'm not sure about the others you mentioned."

[livestoannoy]

"Never heard of them - but strategy video games are a bit different," he said, going on to explain how they worked.

[encourage]

Most the specialized terminology flew over her head, if she could pick up the general idea. Still, if she wanted to get any real idea, Marco explaining wasn't going to cut it. He made a horrible teacher that way. "Fine. That one. Whatever the last one you mentioned, do they have it here?"

[livestoannoy]

"Myst?" Marco said, thinking of the last game he'd mentioned. Okay, it was single player only, but still an awesome game. It could work. "Yeah, they have that here." He tilted his head at her, a slow grin creeping onto his face. "Does this mean you do want to go on another date then?"

[encourage]

"I figure it's only fair to let you actually try and do this your way," she said archly, moving off to collect her clothing.

It was as close to as yes as he was getting.

[livestoannoy]

Hey, he was going to take whatever yes he could get.

He stood up, grabbing his own clothes before following her to the bridge. "Hey, you did have fun, right?" he asked suddenly. "You know, when we weren't arguing or in the middle of drowning."

[encourage]

Sakura finished pulling her shorts on before answering. I wonder why it really matters so much to him. Probably not wanting to be a screw-up, and she was tempted to tell him to stop worrying so much. It was too much like dealing with Naruto sometimes, in the past, like seeing a more honest mirror of herself. "Pretty sure the only one trying to drown was you," she said, tone kept light and teasing.

She picked up her shirt, thinking it over. Surprisingly, somewhere in there, between the things she'd definitely not enjoyed, to the frustration, to everything else, she'd actually had fun. Maybe it was some lingering aftereffects of how she'd felt at the beach party earlier, if she was inclined to believe otherwise.

"Yeah, I did. What about you?" It'd been his date, if she'd kind of overridden any control he had of it early that morning. She pulled her shirt on over her head waiting for a response.

[livestoannoy]

Marco grinned. "Yeah, I had fun too," he said. And he did actually mean it. The swimming was a bit of a disaster, yeah, but whenever they were just chatting like normal - on the train, or on the hill - that was fun. And even though she was frustrating, and spent way too much digging at him for information, he still wanted to spend more time with her.

And okay, she was cute too.

He wasn't blind though - Marco could tell that the date was pretty much over. But she'd agreed to a second one, so that wasn't so bad. Maybe then he could actually stay dry the entire time. But if it was the end of the date, this was when he was supposed to kiss her, right?! That was just How Dates Went. Apparently. Maybe. It wasn't like Jake had ever given him a detailed run-down of what happened on his dates with Cassie. And he did not want to know how Rachel and Tobias's dates ever went, seriously.

And okay, if he was honest he did actually want to kiss her. Problem was, he didn't exact have much experience with kissing. Or, well, any experience with kissing. And he wasn't sure if Sakura would go for it. Maybe she'd punch him in the head for it. Or try to drown him again.

Momentarily throwing common sense and self preservation out the window then, as soon as her head popped back up from pulling her shirt on he went for it, leaning forward and quickly pecking her on the lips before drawing back, just as quick. "So. Um," he said, completely failing to come up with anything remotely resembling a witty line.