trans_9 | carefully executed maneuvers (bendytimed before clone plot) [closed]

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

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.

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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.

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."

"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?"

"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?"

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.

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.

"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?"

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."

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

"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.

"Why do you keep calling them bored games?"

"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.

"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."

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

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?"

Edited 2011-06-23 03:03 (UTC)

"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?"

"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.

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."

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.

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.

Edited 2011-06-23 06:05 (UTC)

She'd noticed Marco was close, but she'd partly passed that off as his sense of personal space being different than her own. He sent enough weird social signals according to what she recognized that this was just one more for the growing pile. Much of the ridiculous comedy she'd been watching to make sure Analog would be satisfied with her 'tribute' had been about space invasion, for comic reasons. It led to lots of flailing and incidental, unintentional injury, which had been perfect for Analog.

Sakura hadn't expected to have him literally in her face, was in process of pulling back (way too close there, monkey boy) when she felt the briefest brush of his lips over her partly open ones.

That hadn't just happened. There was no way that had just happened. "What?" She stared at him, heat rising in her face. "What was that?!" Pressing one hand to her lips, she looked down at her hand like it would have come away with something. She was left looking at her fingers, nothing more remarkable then that.

And she was angry. Turning abruptly away from him, trembling in restrained emotion, she told herself to calm down. He's an idiot. Slapping him wouldn't teach him anything -- or maybe it would. She'd have to unclench the fists she was clenching at chest level first, but that would feel nice. Yes, even if that technique had never actually worked for either Sai or Naruto, it had some chance of working with Marco!

She probably looked like she was close to crying from his vantage point, if it was rather far from the truth.

Fuck, this wasn't...fuck! She didn't even look mad. She just looked like she was about to cry. He'd thought...okay, he'd hoped that, you know, she liked him back enough to...oh man, how bad did he have to be at this to make her cry?!

If she'd been looking at him, she'd have seen the way his face fell. "Look, I..." he started, before stopping, gulping. "Okay, I get it. You...I'll just go, alright?"

Feeling miserable, Marco started morphing osprey, feathers spouting all over his skin.

What?! And now he was going to run away? Sakura's head jerked up. She spun around and was after him almost immediately. "Don't you dare run away, you coward!" Her flush was almost entirely from anger by this point, and she sounded pissed.

Hello significantly smaller and feathery morphing Marco. Sakura took creative hold, if it was one of the most disconcerting experiences of her life. He was not getting away just because he could morph into a damn hawk and fly and she couldn't.

"You don't 'get it.' If you did, you wouldn't be getting ready to -- to fly away. Is that your idea of dealing with things, Marco? Run away rather than face them head on?" Unfair, again, but she's pissed. "That was my first kiss? I might have given up on the whole madly in love thing a while ago, but I was still sort of hoping this would mean something!"

"I can't even hit you for it now. Bird bones are too fragile." Somehow, that made it all the worse. Even if he could heal by morphing back, Sakura didn't intentionally inflict that level of pain on another being. No matter how much of an idiot that "other" might be.

Now almost fully morphed, Marco flapped his wings wildly. The osprey's instincts didn't like being held like this, and right now, with Sakura kinda freaking him out a little, Marco wasn't really a fan of it either.

<I'm sorry!> He cried. <I thought...I didn't know, alright?!> And what the hell was her 'hoping this would mean something' supposed to mean?! Marco wasn't one for the whole 'falling madly in love' crap either. And he sure as hell wouldn't say he loved her. But he liked her, and that was something, right? What the hell was this? Did she even like him at all?

Had she just gone and said yes when she really wanted to say no?

<Look, you obviously don't want me here, okay?> he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. <So can you just let me go?!> He struggled harder, trying to twist out of her grip. Except even if he was smaller and more fragile right now, he still had a beak and talons, and Sakura could very well end up with a few gashes in the process.

Gashes Sakura didn't even flinch at. "No. Not just so you can run away."

She really, really didn't like being run out on.

"What were you thinking?" This time the question wasn't accusing, if there was an edge to it. She didn't understand him -- above and beyond guys in general.

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