[Open] It's getting hot in here

[showsnopiety]

Who: Caren and anyone visiting the hot springs!
When: Post dungeon, could be right after fail/success, could be days after
Where: Hot Springs of course
What: There's a hot springs, so now there's a hot springs episode.
Rating: Could be a p-13 and beyond because some people are only wearing towels in this place.





[Win or fail, everyone needed a reason and a way to relax. With the fall of the towers, there was all sorts of good things to come from it. Some would say it was the birds; and others would say it was the hot springs.

The large, large pools of heated water. Sure, they could be used as a way to get all steamed up (or even steam punk) but after all that hard work, everyone deserves a break!

Bring your swimsuits, your towels, your drinks and snacks-who knows, you should be able to find them in the bazaars, or even on Airy. It's time to soak in the heat!]

Comments

i'd say i'm sorry but it would be a lie

[mitotic]

[ He's the only person here she'll take the towel off for, he better appreciate it.

For that reason, too, the isolated pool suits her just fine. And while she isn't nearly as guarded as Sasuke, either with herself or with her affection, she's intimate enough with him and his walls to know that he is never truly relaxed with her unless no one else is around to witness it. She wouldn't have understood it twenty years ago, but she does now.

She settles next to him, near enough that it would be obvious to anyone who might have looked that they're more than casual acquaintances, but Sasuke is the first one to reach out and touch. She understands that, too. ]

It's fine. [ It hurts, don't get her wrong, but it's such a minor thing compared to what life as a ninja has dealt to her. Not to mention labor. ] I'd almost forgotten what it's like to let them heal on their own.

[ Healing them required so little chakra and effort, with her skill, that it became an afterthought. ]

ah.......

[penitents]

[ He flattens his palm against the discoloration on her skin, a mockery of what it is she can do with her chakra. He's never been talented in healing, and while he's more familiar with what it means to linger with an injury, even he isn't used to this extent. ]

I know.

[ After a moment, he slides his hand down her arm and pauses (it's a tangible thing, a freezing in his shoulders like he's uncertain of himself) before letting it settle on her wrist, keeping contact. ]

(╬ Ò ‸ Ó)

[mitotic]

[ When Sakura stills (for barely half a second, it would be easy to miss if they weren't touching) it's not because the touch is unwelcome, or because she's uncertain at all. It's not and she's not. It's just that it's been a long time since he's reached for her this way, this casual contact, this just-for-the-sake-of. He was gone for long, and she's always been the more tactile one.

Which is why she turns her hand over so they're palm to palm, not quite holding hands but only just. ]

sweats

[penitents]

[ Sasuke exhales. It's a quiet sound, barely a puff of breath over his lips. He has never been remarkably tactile. Relearning what it meant to be emotionally close to someone that wasn't his brother or Naruto, physically close when it wasn't fighting, was no easy task. Sakura has always reached for him easily, something he has never truly been able to grasp an understanding of, given their complicated and violent history. Naruto was one thing: they came with similar stories. Sakura, it seems, has always loved him differently. He understands now that he's older that he loves her in return, in his own way, but most times he feels as though he is awkwardly trying to navigate terrain he neither has a map for nor the information gathering technique to know how to master.

He leaves it at that, for now, their hands touching under the safety of warm water, their shoulders nearly touching. He tips his head back against the edge of the spring and allows himself the freedom to relax. ]

Did you see Naruto?

[mitotic]

[ It doesn't really bother her that he falters, that he doesn't know how to respond in kind. Not anymore. He does what he can, and he tries, and Sakura has learned where to look for it. There are walls that even someone as friendly and people-oriented as she keeps, but for him (and for Naruto, and for Sarada) she is always open. Even for little things like this. Especially for moments like this, when he looks as peaceful as she usually sees him. ]

Here? Yeah, I saw him in the spring earlier.

[penitents]

Good.

[ It seems abrupt, but his concern is clear in his asking to begin with. Though they'd all sustained a number of injuries, Naruto had, of course, over done it as he usually does. Fortunate that they were able to get him healed, at last partially, before arriving here. In their own world, something like a knife through the hand could almost be waved off as a minor injury.

That didn't remain true here. Naruto had a steep learning curve to climb, and it preoccupied much more of Sasuke's thoughts than he cared to admit out loud. ]

[mitotic]

Worried about us?

[ She's teasing him, albeit gently: her smile softens it. Of course she knows he's interested in their well-being. It isn't always obvious to most, but she's known him long enough to know that he is, even when he doesn't necessarily express it.

Still, she enjoys ribbing him sometimes. Just not nearly as often or as antagonistic as Naruto. ]

[penitents]

[ Sasuke cracks an eye open, rolling his head just against the rocks to look at her sideways, bemused. It's a testament to how far their relationship has come: when he was young, she had spent so much time walking on eggshells around him that he'd never had the chance to know what she was like as a whole person. After a moment, leaving the look squared on her as a dry response to her playfulness, he closes his eyes again and flexes his hand on hers beneath the water. Her hands aren't as soft as Naruto's, a byproduct of fighting with her fists and not having the same natural healing factor Naruto did. ]

Yeah.

[mitotic]

[ The flexing of his hands is all the invitation Sakura needs to thread her fingers gently through his, and even though his eventual response is as taciturn as she expected from him, the fact that he admits it at all conveys volumes. ]

He'll be fine. [ Sakura settles down in the water a little, leaning her head gently against his shoulder, content in the warmth of the water and in his presence. ] I guess it's been a while since we were challenged like that.

[ Even Shin had been destroyed by his own children... "children." ]