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

[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.

[encourage]

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.

[livestoannoy]

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.

[encourage]

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.

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

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.

[encourage]

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.

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

<I was thinking that I wanted to kiss you,> he said, his thought-speak voice sounding flat. <Obviously you weren't a fan of that.>

[encourage]

Sakura could pull off a flat look to match his tone. "That's it?"

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

<Yes that's it!> Marco said, sounding somewhat irritated as he flapped his wings in protest. <What else would it be?>

[encourage]

"Bad dating advice from television?" Hey, she only knew he watched it because he'd made a point of bringing it up before.

She sighed, shedding some of her irritation staring at her bird companion. "Will you please demorph?" Sakura was sounding much calmer, which wasn't hard, considering irritated would sound like total calm compared to her a minute earlier.

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco gave her an osprey's best withering look. <I'm not Ax. I don't just do things because they appeared on the TV.>

And she might sound calmer, but Marco couldn't help but be suspicious. Especially after that earlier comment about how him being a bird mean she couldn't hit him. <Why?>

[encourage]

She didn't say anything, staring him down. Sakura was more than stubborn enough to keep him here until he eventually had to -- whenever that was.

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco really didn't want to demorph. Not without some kind of idea of what was going to happen. Except with her still holding onto him, flying away was an option he didn't have. Reluctantly, he started demorphing.

[encourage]

Sakura waited to set him down until she could see (feel) him reversing the process. There was a chance he could re-reverse the process again, but she had faith in her reaction times.

Setting him down, she stepped back to give him room.

(Watching morphing was like a special kind of bad day in ninja land. She wouldn't mention as much, but it'd be a pretty effective way of unsettling just about anyone who didn't know what was going on.)

[livestoannoy]

Not long after, Marco was back to human, and eying Sakura as if he expected her to attack him at any moment. (Girls back home never freaked out this much when you kissed them...right?)

[encourage]

(They must have! Once or twice. On Dr. Sexy.)

When he was standing, Sakura bridged the distance between them. She wasn't looking all that amused when she told him to hold still. Sakura brought her hands up to his face, sliding them back into his hair. When she kissed him, it was a lot more firm and deliberate, if just as chaste.

Then she pulled back and slapped him across the face.

"You ask. Stop assuming. And don't forget that I'm not from Earth." Or Hispania. Or the United States of America, if she ever figured out that was where he was from.

[livestoannoy]

Marco's first instinct was to draw back, and get out of the way of any attack - but she was too quick, so he was left standing there feeling stunned as she both kissed him and hit him.

He wasn't quite sure if he'd come out of this ahead or behind, in the end.

"So much for 'ninjas prefer to be spur of the moment then," he said, quirking his lips into half a smile. "And you didn't ask me."

[encourage]

Now she knew why she hung out with dense guys. They didn't say anything when they came across inconsistencies in what she said. Hell, they mostly didn't realize.

Sai invented his own reasons for why they happened. And those were mostly too absurd to be concerned with.

"I said that when it came to dates, not what you do on them," she retorted, fighting down a blush and crossing her arms defensively over her chest. "You already said what you wanted to do. Besides, that wasn't for you."