[ OPEN ] Hot Springs Episode!

[shri]

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
WHERE: The Second Flight
WHEN: DAY :022
SUMMARY: The Sauna!
WARNINGS: Nekkid times.

[ A few hours after the murder, she hasn't blown the ship up, and here they are. Another knock knock on everyone's brain: ]

( For those of you that are interested - I have secured us a place at the Sauna. Free for us to be use without interruption from outsiders.

You are to be clean before you come in. )

[ Maybe you're here because she bullied you, maybe you want to soak - maybe you're the poor bastard that is standing guard at the door. Either way, welcome to the Suana, have fun. Or don't. ]

Comments

[skaikru]

I. butts on butts on butts ( open | day 22 )

( lakshmi summons, and it’s mostly curiosity that tugs clarke along in the wake of her invitation. she’s never been in a sauna before; had stumbled upon the entrance to the hot springs during her initial walk around the public parts of the second flight and been struck by the powerful scent of aromatic lavender; intoxicated, intrigued. but their concealment was the most important aspect of this mission, that had been pressed into her mind, and clarke hadn’t wanted to push her luck. but now, with the promise of some semblance of privacy and a nice long soak… well, it’s not as if she has anything better to do. sitting on her bed in the berthings or delving into the sea of suspicious stares that seemed to have flooded every hallway seemed distinctly less pleasant than lounging in lavender bathwater.

so catch her ( a ) right inside the privacy screens, already a little hot under the collar from the humidity that hung in the air like a blanket, and peeling off the hood of her costume to reveal thinly disguised skepticism. opening her mouth to reveal blatant skepticism. )

We’re not contaminating the crime scene, are we?

( or ( b ) closer to the pools, going through the now familiar motions of stripping headscarves. gloves, and shoes, placing them neatly on a rocky ledge before — looking a little too far over to the left to catch sight of others stripping down even further. significantly further.

she’s not blushing, it’s the steam rising from the spring. )

They’re naked. ( blunt, eyes a little wide. totally staring for a second before her gaze rockets upward, focusing anywhere but(t) on the fellow pool goers. whatever illusions of privacy clarke had maintained are crumbling, and she notices a line of neatly folded towels off to the side, but not a trace of any waterproof apparel. ) I thought there would be swim suits.

( or ( c ) sitting all moody-like in the water, hunkered up to her neck, legs and arms crossed, and desperately, desperately avoiding eye contact or conversation with anyone. this feels nowhere near as relaxing as she’d wistfully hoped. )

II. can we be friends again now please ( closed | day 22 )

( it’s sometime later, after her first bout in the steaming, heavily perfumes waters and all the strangled anxiety of being naked and vulnerable in the midst of a large group of people. eventually the heat had gotten to her head, and clarke had crawled from the water to sit on a rock, wrapped in one of the large, fluffy towels they had been provided with. somehow even the stones all around them felt warm and inviting, and it was so incredibly easy to tip her head back against a smooth patch of rock and close her eyes. the warm waters had done absolute magic for the knots in her should she hadn’t even realized were there, and despite all the unpleasantness of the last few days that festered in the back of her mind, this is arguably the most relaxed she’s been in weeks. maybe even months. there was no hard in prolonging that sensation for a little while longer.

she doesn’t exactly snooze, but seems content to sit for a while. rolling water droplets dry, humidity sweat take its place. when she’s moved to stand again, considering returning to the berthings for a nap, it’s to find that her entire body feels sticky and gross. and while not a long walk back to their sleeping quarters, donning all the various layers of their caribouschian disguises sounds unpleasant.

just one more dip, clarke decides. a short one. and sets to wandering deeper into the maze of grotto’s lakshmi’d had quartered off for their own private use. she ought to have just started in one of these more secluded areas and saved herself the bother, but hindsight’s 20/20. finally feeling far enough removed from the bulk of the naked nest, clarke rounds one more corner with the intention of sliding directly into the pool, only to belatedly realize — nope, it wasn’t empty. nope, it was occupied by one bellamy blake.

bellamy whom she hadn’t spoken to in a handful of days, days that seemed to stretch past their logical time restraints. long days that felt like weeks, enough time to freeze on the edge of the water and immediately feel… awkward. bellamy whom she’d stared at across the stretch of beds in the berthings, hoping to catch his eye, or see some signal that the angry feelings from lexa’s tent were behind them. clarke had considered approaching him once or twice, trying to soothe over hurt feelings and return to some semblance of normal, but he’d always seemed to get up and leave the room before she could work up the nerve. but now here he was, with only a few feet of dark, rosehip scented water and rocks between them.

clarke just looks at him, for what feels like too long of a time without saying anything. do you want me to leave? curls up on her tongue, but — no. she doesn’t want to retreat, not after the last few days. not having bellamy at her side, or at least approachable felt… horrible. she needs to tell him that when she’d told him to take a walk, she’d meant for him to come back after. )

Are you still upset with me?

III. wildcard, kiddos!

( idk, come make fun of her )

I (b)

[wille]

[ The least she could do is cover her most private parts with any of the folded towels lying about, or cover her conspicuous scar with her hands, or angle herself such so as not to impose her nakedness upon another person, or at least feign a smidgen of discomfort for sympathy's sake. Of course, she does none of this. Instead she stands in her skin with as much confidence as a fully-armored woman, one hand on her hip, wearing only an amused smile at Clarke's expense. Mind, there's little in the way of meanness in the way she speaks next, only light teasing, her mind as relaxed as the tone of her voice. It isn't that she has forgotten their previous altercation as much as it doesn't matter anymore. Her moods shift like the weather. ]

Now's the time to ask the intimate questions. Ever heard that saying?

[ She impresses the meaning upon the girl's mind: hadaka no tsukiai. A relationship stripped of pretense, what happens when two people face each other having left all worldly trappings in the locker. Point made, she eventually starts walking toward one of the smaller isolated pools nearby, testing the water with her feet before stepping in slowly. ]

C'mon. It's not fair if I'm naked and you're not.

[skaikru]

( if she'd been made to feel moderately uncomfortable with the idea of being naked and vulnerable around the general swarm of the nest, it's somehow worse with misato standing directly in front of her, cavalier in her nudity and striking up a conversation with a tone in stark contrast compared to the note they'd ended on last time. it throws suspicion into the mix alongside a baseline anxiety, and a modest streak she'd maybe never been aware of. clarke meets misato's gaze for all of one second, just to level her with a perfectly flat, unimpressed look — all of her stodgy opinions that intimate questions could be asked perfectly easily while they were all fully dressed — before fixing her gaze somewhere over the other woman's right ear.

it's perfectly fair that she's naked, but with the air of one accepting a challenge, clarke dutifully begins to unravel the laces of her vest. )

Do you have intimate questions you wanted to ask me?

( no pls don't. )

[wille]

[ Misato slips into the water with a familiar sigh, draping her arms over the rim with the ease of owning the entire pool, no the entire grotto and the ship with it. It isn't entirely sincere. Kaji isn't the only one with the masks. But where his is practiced, perfected, hers is cruder, yet more insistent, like the smile she maintains when she watches Clarke. ]

If you're offering. It would only be fair.

[ She hasn't forgotten, see? But there's a trick to using the present to rewrite the past. ]

Come join me first.

[skaikru]

( the thing about talking with misato, from her limited exposure, is it invariably ends up feeling like a challenge; bait to snap at, a bar to rise to. stepping into this world had felt like stepping into enemy territory regardless, but the other woman shirks off her clothes and steps into the water with little forethought and it's more like sitting down at a war council — feeling the tug and pull to follow foreign traditions for fear of being eaten alive, even as clarke diverts her eyes and fixates on a bit of rock several feet above misato's head.

confliction is written on her face in lines: a furrowed brow, tightly pressed lips. she's heavily debating turning right around and taking her very own bath, privately, in the bathrooms attached to their berthings. but that idea reeks of cowardice and retreat, and before making an active decision, clarke finds her toes against her heels, shucking off her boots and bending to roll up both pant legs.

compromise is dangling her feet into the pool a few feet away from misato and trying not to openly weep for how good the water feels on aches and pains she hadn't even realized she was holding. some of the intended stone-faced defensiveness is absent when she speaks. ) What do you want to know?

I (c)

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It's a hell of a relief not to have to wear all those layers. Sam's used to dressing mostly for freedom of movement, and their disguises make it pretty damn difficult. So he's at ease after he'd stripped out of his outfit, limbs loose and lax as he lounges in the water with a tray of fruity drinks on the rocks next to him.

As comfortable as he is with his own nudity, though, he's more than aware that's not the same for everyone, and for the most part he doesn't let his gaze linger on anyone. Until he spots Clarke within conversation distance, looking like she's regretting her current existence.

His eyes remained focused on hers - or technically, on her cheekbones just below her eyes, out of habit from working with too many soldiers who were either uncomfortable with prolonged eye contact or took it as a challenge - as he smiles slightly. ]

Takes some getting used to, huh?

[skaikru]

( in general so far, she's found sam's presence to be one of calm competence and centered certainty. he'd been polite and kept the inner workings of his mind tempered when they'd first spoken, a welcome sort of relief during those first few days of adjustment, and he'd been a sturdy presence at her side during the excavation of grey matter just a few days ago. but all those positive qualifiers don't exactly serve to make this entire experience anymore comfortable.

clarke's face is a mask of forced composure when she turns ever so slightly to look his way. her usual visual once-over, a head to toe sweep of wary assessment is aborted the moment her eyeline dips below a collarbone, and clarke's gaze politely rockets somewhere off to the side to latch onto a particularly interesting outcropping of rock. um. )

The water's nice. ( it's not difficult to praise the warmth seeping into tense muscles and aches she hadn't even realized she was carrying. it's not even that difficult to school her features into the ghost of a grin that doesn't look like she regrets getting into the pools in the first place. ) And whatever they put in it to make it smell like this, it's growing on me.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ He tries not to look too amused as her gaze stops very quickly and shoots off into the distance, but there's definitely a bit of a grin there.

At least it looks like she's almost smiling. ] You think we can bottle some of it to take it back with us?

[ Clarke reminds him a little of Steve, of Shiro - people who've found themselves in a leadership role because they're so damn good at it, who carry the weight of all the decisions they've had to make and all the ones they know they're gonna have to make in the future, and never seem to know how to put any of it down.

Who haven't been given much of an opportunity to let it go for a little while, and that just makes him want to help give her one. ]

I was in the military. Lost all sense of body-shyness pretty damn quick. [ He nudges at the tray of drinks. ] And these definitely don't hurt.

[skaikru]

( it's palpable what he's doing; idle jokes, an easy kind of open honesty that she hadn't asked for but readily appreciated. if kept up, chances of clarke favoring sam with a very uneasy but rather genuine smile greatly increase, even if the look she favors the tray of alcoholic beverages with is this side of distrusting. )

It'll go straight to our heads. ( heat and alcohol made for a very mental sort of intoxication, and even surrounded by water, the threat of dehydration could make the whole lot of them collectively stupid.

and yet that all seems rather appealing right now, chasing unease with complimentary cocktails. it would be easy to blame the nagging inclination to use alcohol as a bandage, borrowed from her broodmate, but in all honesty, it is clarke's creeping unhappiness and skin-crawling discomfort that has her reaching for the closest glass, an alarmingly green drink with bits of leaves floating amidst the ice cubes. )

So you were an army medic? ( it makes sense, if she thinks on it. kneeling side by side over lavellan, four hands steady on various alien but familiar instruments; neither shying away from the blood or gore, only from the reality of the symbiote between folds of grey matter. but clarke doesn't ponder the fit of the puzzle pieces too long, she's taking one sip of the chilly refreshment and — yikes. yeah, that will lend to killing body-shyness quite efficiently.

she's distracted from praising the necessity of his skill set, instead busy pulling a rather spectacular face. )

Ib

[calhar]

[ Mat's still in the process of stripping when Clarke notices the obvious — sans the outer robes, having just discarded a small pile of discretely hidden daggers, still wearing the under layers. His response is delayed while he drags the vest off, leaving his hair mussed and his scarf crooked.

He tugs it back into place before following her (now diverted) gaze towards the pools. He isn't particularly offended or anxious about it; exasperated, maybe, but only a bit. ]

Swim suits?

[ It was kind of skinny dip or bust back home, lbr. ]

[skaikru]

( clarke is admittedly a little out of her depth. there hadn't been a swimming pool on the ark, and aside from falling into, jumping into, or nearly being drowned in the occasional body of water on earth, her experience with swimming is pretty minimal. somewhere high above their heads, higher than the second flight sails, the station has a fully functional swimming pool and provides simple white swimsuits for all, but she hadn't had a chance to explore that yet. and hadn't thought to grab a suit when she'd learned they were dropping down to an aired, desert-like planet. honestly, it probably wouldn't have even crossed her mind if they'd been coming to a planet devoted entirely to spas; downtime was still a foreign concept. )

Swim suits, ( she confirms, looking sideways at mat with a twisted confliction about her face. ) They were an Earth thing. Like... aquatic underwear.

( ...could she just go in her underwear? serious thought is being given to that idea. )

[calhar]

[ Well, that sounds awful. Mat gives her a bemused look as he considers "aquatic underwear", but his skepticism is chased out by a modicum of sympathy. He's been to a few countries, enough to know what's fine in one isn't remotely fine in another — and he wouldn't have minded if the Aiel had put clothes on a little more often out of consideration, frankly. ]

You could go in with your underthings, I'm sure. Though I can't see as to how it'd be very comfortable.

[ He says, while not taking off his scarf even after he's lost his shirt. He hesitates for a moment when he gets to his pants, too viscerally aware of Clarke's squeamishness to want to add to her nerves. ]

[skaikru]

( with as much thought as clarke is putting toward to idea of sinking into the water in compression shorts and a t-shirt, and for all mat's gently ribbing endorsement, it ultimately just isn't a good idea. that would either mean walking back to their rooms in sopping underclothes, or taking them off and carrying them back within the folds of her cloak to dry somewhere around their shared sleeping quarters and really just )

No. No, it wouldn't be. ( he's right and she's stuck — staring at the rock wall as if it's done her some sort of personal injustice, warring with her reservations. there's a battle of wills between her eyebrows, getting over the initial discomfort facing off with the idea of just ducking out of the warm sauna room before anyone noticed her awkward dawdling when clarke catches mat's hesitance at the edge of her conscious. it earns him a look of mild confusion before his level of partial undress registers, and a rather bemused expression washes over furrows of inner conflict. )

Don't let me keep you.

( and with a slight sigh, getting over herself wins out. after all, who knew? maybe being naked en masse wouldn't feel any more terribly open and awkwardly vulnerable as being a part of each other's conscious stream of thought. perhaps the dark water and alluring scent of lavander bath salts would serve as a decent buffer, and she'd come this far already. while dutifully keeping her gaze on rocks, clarke begins plucking the laces of her vest and lays it atop the growing pile of dusty clothes. )

I (c)

[redheadcarrier]

[ Asuka can sense a kindred spirit in Clarke, especially when they're both huddled up and trying to keep as much of themselves beneath water and out of line sigh as possible. She drifts, scooting against the wall, her good eye still suspiciously eyeing her surroundings and any male figures that might be anywhere close to them. Her eyepatch is still on and she's being very careful not to get it wet. ]

This is stupid. Why'd they let the men in here?

[ She feels your pain. ]

[skaikru]

( bless you small child who is also made moderately uncomfortable with the open vulnerability of being naked around so many people. asuka approaches, bristling and snappy, and it's a little reaffirming. there is strength and comfort to be found in numbers, and while clarke doesn't relax so much to unfold her arms from across her chest, she can manage a sympathetic smile. they're in the same (pool) boat, and while clarke is less upset about the general nudity and more so about the additional level of feeling exposed around some she'd still consider strangers, she understands where asuka's reservations are coming from as well. )

Maybe Lakshmi could only curtain off so much room and didn't want to exclude anyone.

( that's... being generous, perhaps. clarke's real money is on the fact that very few of their companions seem bothered with the whole communal bath idea. )

[redheadcarrier]

[ They can be horrifically uncomfortable together, albeit for slightly different reasons. She stays folded in on herself, still apparently suspicious of anyone and everyone who might come their direction. She feels exposed, especially when there are men out and about here. Hmmph. ]

Well, maybe they should've made the boys wait their turn. It's what I would've done!

[ Because she's the greatest decision-maker. Of all time. ]

[skaikru]

( admittedly, nothing quite cuts the tension of being uncomfortable like being in the company of someone even more enraged than you were. and while clarke would guess they were both rather prickly, it makes it the tiniest bit easier to gather the remaining scraps of her composure and calm with asuka practically spitting liquid disdain to her right. )

Or I guess we could have waited until later, when everyone else had left.

( she says we to be gentle, really meaning you. but it's a statement without any malice, and accented with a soft snort and the continued presence of that mild smile. on a moderately more pressing note, slight bemusement curbed: )

None of them have been bothering you, have they?

1b

[justttkidding]

[ If he was going to be honest with himself, he'd say that nudity like this used to make him blush. Before becoming a contractor, maybe even in his very beginning days with MI6. It wasn't his fault he had fair skin that showed the blood vessels under it all too well. Though he could point a finger in the direction of English propriety for giving him the notions that nudity was embarrassing. Shameful, maybe. Something done in private.

Except all of that is in the past and now he's a disgusting liar. So, he doesn't see the point in getting all ruffled about a bit of skin.

Some people still have their shame though. Like Clarke, who is turning a few shades darker than pink. Like someone has just dropped red ink onto a napkin. Creeping all the way down.

How cute. ]

And so they are. [ November replies easily, sliding his tie off and letting it join the small pile of clothes nearby. He doesn't even give it a second thought as his shirt follows after. It felt good to take all the blasted layers off. ]

Somehow I doubt they have the cloth materials for swimming costumes. Besides, this is more romantic, mm?

[skaikru]

( in the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively small scale crisis. it's not on par with struggling to find food, water and shelter on earth, nowhere near as seemingly impossible as trying to discern which rank the enemy had infiltrated along the pilgrimage, and promised nothing so dire and destructive as war. but it's still a situation clarke has never been in before and is treated with an appropriate amount of apprehension for an unprepared teenager. she's a little stuck, hung up more so on the exposure and vulnerability of being naked in a group of relative strangers than on the actual nudity itself, and perhaps a little rattled in being overheard in her alarm.

the sidelong look she spares november is full of pinched pain, pointedly not dragging any lower than his chin. and also what? )

You're not looking for romance in — ( here clarke griffin, struggling to make warm, lavender scented hot springs full of aesthetic fake fish and plantlife sound unappealing. ) — dirty communal bathwater. Are you?

[justttkidding]

[ Ah, the pointed look directed at his face. Well, somewhere in the realm of it, anyway. Amusing.

He tries not to let that show on his expression too much, keeping it mild. Too much of a grin and smug charm was a cocktail for getting punched in the face. ]

I'd hardly consider this dirty. You heard Lakshmi, rinse before getting in; the water stays as uncontaminated as possible that way. [ His eyebrows go up a bit, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. ] And depends on what you categorize as romance. This is quite lovely and intimate.

[skaikru]

( smug satisfaction in the face of others' discomfort was a recipe for a whole wealth of retaliations: being punched in the face, pushed in the water and subsequently drowned, abandoned halfway through a conversation... it's luck or something that clarke's only really considering the third; currently displaying the war of willpower playing out between furrowed eyebrows. is it unreasonably high strung to forego a nice sauna soak and just slump back to the berthings or viewing deck? probably. does that mean she's going to stop kicking her feet and jump in immediately? no. )

But it's public. ( clarke reasons, like that fact cuts down on the already heightened intimacy of being privy to one another's thoughts and emotions. )

[deployed]

[ When Bellamy had first arrived on Concordia, he'd marveled at the showers set up in the Bearings. Having immediate access to clean, hot water had been an unexpected luxury. But of course, not every mission would afford them that. Bellamy had resigned himself to stifling under their thick Caribouschian robes for the duration of the mission without complaint. But upon being presented with the opportunity to shed the robes and soak for as long as he liked, Bellamy shucks off the robes and finds himself a quiet pool to occupy.

He brings his knife. He isn't foolish. Bellamy knows they'd likely have bigger problems if someone dropped in on them in the section of the baths Lakshmi had cordoned off, but he isn't going to be caught unawares.

But of course, Clarke takes him by surprise. Bellamy half-rises then sinks back into the water, instantly aware of his own nudity. It hadn't mattered very much to him when he'd thought of sharing a pool with other members of the Nest, but it matters in front of Clarke. The inherent awkwardness occupies his mind for a moment before it's replaced by the sting of memory from the argument in their tent. But just like with Murphy, Bellamy can't quite bring himself to run from the conversation even if he doesn't have an answer for her. ]

Are you getting in?

[ An easier question to ask than to try to tell her that he doesn't know if he's mad. He's hurt, and that's a more difficult thing for Bellamy to explain. ]

[skaikru]

( the history of their disagreements could be mapped as a series of yelling, tears, and olive branches extended after the fact. and standing naked on the side of a pool in a towel, shifting her weight between her feet, bellamy's rather reluctant invitation into the water feels a lot like a peace offer. a seat at the war table left open for her, a door nudged ajar to a much-needed heart to heart. something that wants to be a sigh of relief swells in clarke's lungs, though that feels a little preemptive.

she doesn't require being asked twice. testing the waters of his inclination to talk to her had really just been a nicety, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, for the first time all evening clarke doesn't hesitate to step into the water, even if eventually shedding the towel leaves them naked and exposed; unresolved tension like raw nerve endings, a million thoughts bubbling over that haven't the eloquence to be voiced aloud. without any preamble, clarke steps into the water, keeping her towel firmly affixed until she's standing on the carved out ledges and the warm dark water is lapping somewhere around her knees. even if there's a somewhat awkward twist-and-turn-and-sit maneuver and her towel partially dips into the water in the name of preserving modesty, ultimately settling into the bath at a comfortable distance from bellamy feels like settling in at home.

but then the silence stretches. uncomfortably. and clarke cannot be immediately moved to break it with the latent fear of this conversation veering as spectacularly off the rails as the last. it should be different, right? just the two of them. but the cloud of confrontation hangs over her head like an unwelcome thunderstorm, and clarke chooses her words carefully. )

I'm not sure if I see the point of this. ( the saunas, a statement illustrated by idly flicking the surface of the water and watching the ripple effect carry across the length of the pool until it's swallowed. )

[deployed]

[ On some level, Bellamy knows Clarke's trying. He understands that she's arrived here to brazen through a confrontation and make amends one way or another. Bellamy can't help but admire that about her. Clarke has an unwavering conviction in all that she does. She enters into stubborn pursuit of her desired outcome with every intention of bending the world into place.

Right now, Bellamy isn't inclined to make it easy for her. Even the flash of bare skin that has him hastily averting his gaze until she's settled doesn't knock that inclination out of him. That doesn't mean he's not aware that the sight isn't going to stick somewhere in the back of his mind, but Bellamy is trying not to let his thoughts circle back around just yet. ]

The pool, or the conversation we're about to have?

[ Addressing it is likely the best approach. Bellamy can't stall forever, but he still hasn't come up with a real answer for her.

But like Murphy, she has been sorely missed. Clarke settling in beside him is a balm against an ache Bellamy has been determinedly ignoring since he sought refuge in Lakshmi's tent. Being close to her is calming. It always has been, even in the face of the inherent awkwardness of their situation. ]

[skaikru]

( the pool. obviously the pool.

clarke fixes him with a wounded sort of expression, visibly a little shaken with the ease he rips off the conversational bandaid. but if they're not tiptoeing around the discussion or easing into it like a warm sauna bath, then she can just bypass that rhetorical question and dig right into the meat of this reunion. despite the privacy they'd been afforded in the tents, it feels like she hasn't had a chance to look bellamy in the face in ages, or at least not a chance to really look at him and take it all in. tired eyes, sweat and steam hair bordering on too-long, a quiet sort of resignation. )

When I told you to leave, I meant for you to come back.

( it's funny, right? how one can say meant for and have it come out sounding like wanted; like it hurt when you didn't. clarke is on the fence as to whether or not she has any business being hurt by his absence, especially when it seemed like such a small thing compared to bellamy's pain over his sister, easily eclipsed by murphy's longing for emori, and insignificant when placed alongside lexa's struggle with her own mortality. but hurt was hurt, even when swallowed. )