Let's Go, Hot Springs!

Author's Note: It is not necessary to read the two preceding "chapters" in this series (This is Escape & This is Healing), but they might provide a little perspective as to why the hell I'm writing these two in the first place.

(I mean, other than the fact that I wanted to write gratuitous smexings between two characters no one else has paired up before. *coughs* So, yeah. ^^;)

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Let's Go, Hot Spring! [Working title]

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"You not seriously going in there, are you?"

Mai rolled her eyes; since her back was to Jet, the gesture was wasted, but she was too focused on her objective to care.

"I took you more for a sadist than a masochist, is all," he muttered, apparently reading her silence. "All right, fine, do whatever the hell you want - if boiling yourself alive is your thing, I ain't gonna stop you."

Annoyed, Mai glared at him over her shoulder. "I never said you had to come in, too - if running around smelling like sweaty ostrich-horse is your thing... you're sleeping on your own bedroll tonight. I am going to enjoy my bath, so shoo." She dismissed him with a flick of her fingers.

Jet's eyebrows furrowed together and the twig clenched between his teeth twitched ferociously. "Pft, whatever." He turned on his heel and stalked away, the gravel path crunching under his boots. "You're gonna wind up smelling like rotten eggs anyway - talk about a turn-off!" he called out before turning toward the run-down hut that was their camp for the night.

"Ass," she muttered, unbuttoning her tunic and shaking her hair out of its confining buns, "If he'd stayed, I would have shown him how much fun a hot springs can be..."

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Even with fresh ostrich-horses, once their path took Mai and Jet into the Nan mountain range, their pace had slowed to a crawl. Chafing at the delay and growing more anxious every day, Mai pushed them hard until Jet took a stand one week out of Hefei.

"You're killing yourself; worse, you're wasting the ostrich-horses," he declared after Mai informed him that she expected to make another twenty miles before nightfall, "The villages up this way aren't in contact with those back west, and it's been weeks since we've run into any constables or bounty hunters. We'd still be making good time if we let up early every other day."

The ensuing debate continued the entire next leg of the trip, only ending in the late evening when Mai spied an interesting sign nailed to a guide-post at a fork in the narrow mountain "highway."

"Will you stop whining for one second?!" she bit out at Jet, nudging her ostrich-horse over to the wooden placard to confirm her first impression.

"I'm not 'whining,' you're the one who's sniping on and on and...!" Jet muttered, pulling his mount up short and glaring at Mai's back.

"We're stopping here tonight," Mai announced, directing her ostrich-horse up the slender trail without so much as a backward glance at Jet.

"Wait, what?" blurted Jet, startled out of his bitter monologue, "Oi! I thought you were all hot and bothered to... Hey!"

"Camp down here at the crossroads, if that makes you feel better," Mai called back, fading into the deepening shadows cast by the thick evergreen branches arching overhead.

"Hurrrr~!" Jet growled, yanking on his reins to turn his ostrich-horse's head up the way Mai had taken. "'Yuufuin Hot Springs Enchantment Hotel - Reasonable Rates!' huh?" he read from the weathered sign in passing, "What the hell kind of idiot builds a hotel out in the middle of bumfuck-nowhere, anyway? No villages, no trade routes, hell, there hasn't even been a beggar on the side of the road all day! They'd better have some damn good food..."

Unfortunately, Jet's initial prognosis had been correct: while a hotel did indeed exist in the "middle of (ahem!)-nowhere," there was no one in sight, idiot or otherwise.

"Wow, a creepy, abandoned hotel a whole hour off the main road and it's nearly sunset - this was a great idea!" Jet enthused sarcastically, hopping off his ostrich-horse and joining Mai in the leaf-littered foyer, stepping carefully over the creaking, rotted boards. "And holy crap, what is that smell?!"

Mai glared, thoroughly annoyed. "It's the minerals in the hot springs, idiot," she muttered, pushing past him and hopping off the veranda. "They're up behind the main building, and it looks like there are several private huts up that way as well. We'll be staying here the night."

"Why?" Jet wanted to know as Mai took the reins and began leading her mount up the footpath toward the nearest hut, the highest pitch of its ramshackle thatch roof just visible above the artificial earthen berm intended to afford occupants privacy when the hotel had been active.

"As you said, it's nearly sunset," Mai explained, "We have enough supplies that we don't need to hunt for dinner tonight, and there are all sorts of pottery and things scattered about that we won't be hurting for things to cook with."

"Yeah, about that..." Jet hurried after Mai, his own ostrich-horse, being the affectionate, loyal type, following behind him obediently, "I'd say this place had been abandoned five, ten years. If it just closed down because they weren't getting any business, do you really think the owners would have left stuff like the furniture and floor-mats in the main hall behind?"

"Your point?" Mai asked, knowing she really ought to just let Jet babble on his own and run out of steam, but he seemed to be in a mood to rant all night if left to his own devices. The hut's paper-screened door hung askew from its tracks, the delicate paper molded and in tatters. Spider-webs, leaves, mold, and animal scat festooned the interior and rodents had gnawed holes through the thick mats of woven rice straw. Mai wrinkled her nose and looked for a broom.

"I'm saying, aren't you the least bit curious as to what caused everyone to up and leave?" Jet asked, sliding open the low closet just inside the door, loosing a flight of silver moths and pulling out a small hand-broom, which he tossed to Mai.

"Not really," she said, catching the broom and swiping at the huge veil of webbing that had drifted into her hair from the ceiling. "They're gone now, whoever they were, which means we don't have to pay for use of the hot springs. Works out to our advantage, if you think about it."

"What if something happened to the hot springs?" Jet insisted, crossing over to her and brushing off the spider perched on her left bun, "What if they boil you alive or turned poisonous for some reason and you get sick if you get near the vapors? Ever think of that?"

She stared at him, raising one eyebrow. "Jet, if you're paranoid of hot springs, just say so. If anything, there was an outbreak of sickness and people just left. We'll be okay if we don't drink from the well or let any animals bite us." Her eyes had fully adjusted to the gloom, and she spied a stout sturdy cedar chest at the back of the room, sealed with a large square of green wax. 'If Earth Kingdom hot springs hotels are anything like they are in the Fire Nation...'

"Oh, yes, because plague makes this place less creepy!" Jet grumbled as Mai moved off to investigate the chest, "This is just the sort of place you find in ghost stories. If the spirits of the dead drag us off to be boiled alive tonight, I'm blaming you."

The intact seal was stamped with the name of the hotel. Even better, there weren't any obvious signs that the trunk had been gnawed through by vermin. Mai slipped her kodachi from it belt and banged the seal loose with one strike. "Not only are you paranoid, you're superstitious," she observed, lifting the trunk's lid and smirking in satisfaction. Her guess had been dead-on.

"After what we went through in that swamp, I'm willing to give ghost stories a little more credit," Jet stated flatly.

Mai's hands froze in the midst of lifting out a shallow reed basket containing a thin, folded cotton robe dyed watery green and a rolled yellow linen sash, ghostly images flitting through her mind's eye. 'Stop that. All it meant was that you're finally picking up the right track,' she told herself sternly. "If that sort of thing's going to frighten you off from a perfectly good campsite, then how are you going to face down whatever it was the swamp showed you?" she asked, setting the basket to one side and picking up the shallow cedar bucket laden with stoppered bottles of various cleansing powders and oils and the towels that cushioned it from the bottom of the chest. She turned and looked back at Jet. "There's another set just like this in here, if you feel like using it," she informed him, gathering up her loot.

Jet tilted his head, appraising her. "Just to be on the safe side, let's stick together until I've scouted the area a bit," he suggested in a serious tone that made Mai pause.

She shrugged. "If it will make you stop complaining, I guess it's the least I can do. There might be some more useful things in the other huts."

"Great, now you start getting into the whole scavenging thing," Jet sighed irritably, although his tone betrayed a note of genuine relief. "Let's leave the ostrich-horses here, and check out the main hall first."

It was a less-than-thorough search, for several reasons, the least of these being the oncoming night. Several of the structures, including the main hall's outbuildings and three of the eight total huts were already in danger of falling apart, nixing any intense scrutiny. Jet seemed satisfied just making certain there were not any living creatures hanging around larger than vermin. Mai, annoyed that she had to pass up on a futon that showed no signs of being chewed on, sourly pointed out that any ghosts were likely to wait until they had let their guard down to attack in any case.

Jet muttered something that sounded like he was questioning her parentage, but since Mai was in a hurry to get to her bath without further vexation, she let it slide.

Which brought her to this point. "Not like I expected that oaf to appreciate finer things in any case," she sniffed, kicking her dusty, sweaty travel clothes to one side. Kneeling on the dark flat rock beside the steps leading down into the steaming pool, Mai filled the shallow bucket and upended over her head, groaning in ecstasy as the hot water seemed to wash away a hundred aches and irritations in one go. She took much longer than necessary, using extravagant amounts of powders, ointments, and scented oils to rid her body of every trace of dust and every tangle from her hair.

It was only when the cool mountain night wind picked up and rattled through the branches overhead that she wrapped her hair up in the towel and glided toward the deep end of the pool, sinking up to her chin below the swirling surface. The heat prickled and burned her tender skin, but Mai leaned back against the side of the pool, sitting on the smooth stone bottom of the spring, letting her body acclimate. The soreness of dozens of days in the saddle and sleeping on rocks and dirt and running for her life melted away, and the half-moon's light danced on the ripples of the pool, as bright as a latern. The water, stirred by the breeze, lapped and shushed against the rocks lining the spring. Mai began to doze...

... until splashes and a series of hoarse, curse-laden yelps interrupted her heavenly sanctuary.

"Please tell you at least rinsed the dirt off yourself," she growled, slitting one eye open to glare at Jet as he plopped down across from her.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," he muttered, shifting like a little boy with an itch in his britches, a scarlet blush spilling across his cheeks.

Mai snickered. "If you sit still, it won't hurt as much," she pointed out, "The way you're moving around, you're just exciting your blood and making it worse." True, if Jet moved around, he would even out his temperature more quickly, but the splashing was bound to get on her nerves.

Jet, his whole skin now a decidedly redder cast than its usual tan, narrowed his eyes at her, but nevertheless sucked in a deep breath and braced himself against the stone wall. As the water was only chest-deep in the shallow end, Mai had a magnificent view of the beads of water and sweat tricking down his muscular chest, zig-zagging over the raised ridges of his old scars...

'Ahem!' She swallowed, looked up at the moon, but her mind seemed to be in a rebellious mood tonight. Was there some truth in the old wives' tale, that hot springs stimulated the...? 'AHEM!'

"Shit..." It was only natural to look at someone when they broke out with an expletive (even if Jet did that all the time), and she couldn't very well pretend that she was falling asleep, now could she? "How can you stand this?" Jet griped, scowling at her with a mixture of disbelief, frustration, and the tiniest smidgen of respect, "I feel like a soup bone!"

There were just so many snide remarks and innuendoes she could retort with that Mai elected instead to go with plain, simple truth. "Hot springs-bathing is something everyone in the Fire Nation does," she replied with a shrug, "Even beggars can find a hot springs as good as this one. It's just in our blood."

"Uh-huh..." Jet snorted and slumped his head back against the rock behind him, wincing as the motion excited another wave of bracing hot pain over his stewing flesh.

'He really wants to get out,' Mai deduced, stretching with languorous motions that made her bathing partner's left eye twitch, 'The only reason he's sitting there, taking it, is because of some idiotic masculine pride thing that won't let him quit until he passes out.' As much fun as it would be to tease and thus provoke him into staying longer than a neophyte bather ought, Mai reflected that she had better things to do than haul an unconscious, naked Jet back to the campsite...

'(Naked?)' Mai grimaced as that traitorous part of her woke up, dangling visions of what the translucent water hid from view before her eyes. 'You stay out of this,' she told it, but her body was already warming to the prompts, tingling in ways that she could no longer blame on the hot water. '(All that blood, getting hot, bet he's as big as...)' OLD WIVES' TALE. WHAT DO YOU NOT GET?! (... at least it's a fun one...)' Gritting her teeth against the dizzying rush of blood to her head, Mai tried to think up a way to tell Jet to get out of the hot spring before he fainted so that he would not take it as a slight against his masculinity. 'Ugh...'

"Okay, to hell with this!" Jet blurted without warning, fumbling to his feet, clutching his head.

'Oh, so he knows at least that much about hot springs etiquette,' Mai observed, fixating on the skimpy, clinging towel clasped around his waist. The bit of fabric performed the exact opposite service for which it was intended: instead of obscuring Mai's current area of attention, the drenched cloth stretched and furrowed over every single angle, plane, and curve of Jet's anatomy with exquisite detail. And if she was not hallucinating because of heat stress, there was a particular tale she was going to have give credit to those nameless, lecherous old biddies of legend.

'(Oh...) You said it.'

Jet, apparently oblivious to Mai's ogling, stumbled up the broad steps, steam streaming off his reddened skin. He got no more than two steps into the open air before he gave up and plonked down on the ground, leaning back on his elbows and panting. "Augh, you Fire Nation types are masochists!" he groaned, gulping in the cool night air and raking back his dripping hair from his eyes.

There was a bit of pain-pleasure in Jet, too, if the swelling underneath the towel was any indication. Mai swallowed, her breath and heartbeat accelerating with anticipation.

"Jet..."

He raised an eyebrow at her, hearing the blatant lust in her tone, but otherwise made no move.

"Come here," she purred, beckoning with one finger.

The other eyebrow quirked. "Whatever dirty thought you're thinking... I'm listening. But hell if I'm getting back in that cauldron," he replied, sitting up and folding his hands under his chin.

Mai sighed and pouted her lip at him; she had seen Ty lee and Su use it to great effect, and as stupid as it made her feel, Jet needed all the encouragement she could muster to carry out her scheme. Jet's eyes widened, and his member stiffened visibly (Mai filed away "pouting lip" in her mental "Useful Tactics for Seduction" drawer). Averting her eyes so as not to get distracted, Mai shrugged her shoulders. "If you're going to be such a big baby about it, sit on the steps. That's more to your level." She almost took a page from Azula's book to "grin in a predatory manner," but figured Jet had already gotten the idea, and that any baring of teeth might actually frighten him away.

Jet, being the reasonably intelligent male she had grown to appreciate him for, whereupon sidled over and down to the submerged shelf of rock so indicated, and settled down with only a grunt or two of complaint. He looked at her expectantly.

Gliding forward on her hands, buoyed by the steaming water, Mai drew up to him and knelt just short of his widespread knees. "Go ahead and lean back," she instructed, making sure that her breasts remained tantalizingly half-out-of-sight to keep him occupied (there were certain points upon which Jet was all too predictable: fighting against even the most idiotic odds, and her breasts. Mai did not know whether she should be gratified or insulted). Jet did so without complaint, draping his arms over the rim of the pool and spreading his legs wider. Mai trailed her nails over his abdomen, conscious of Jet's intense scrutiny; he neither stirred nor commented. Taking this as a go-ahead, she pulled the tucked end of the towel free, loosing the cloth to float open on the glinting ripples of the pool. The tip of his swelling erection broke the surface and Mai bit her lip against the surge of heat that forced its way down to her already aroused clitoris. She had expected him to deliver a witty retort or two for her to shoot down, but Jet was oddly silent and far too watchful. That somehow made her gambit a little more tricky to carry out. 'Oh, to hell with it,' she told herself, leaning forward between his knees just enough to comfortably take his shaft between her hands.

Jet groaned, hips thrusting forward instinctively into her grip, but he quickly recovered his cool, watchful mask, holding his body in place with calculated nonchalance. It did not fool her in the least, as she could hear his suddenly rapid breathing over the rustle of wind-jumbled branches and chuckling water. His body betrayed him in other, less subtle ways as well, and Mai coughed primly as her hands were pushed apart by his swelling shaft. "Just sit still for a bit," she told him in a cold, stern voice.

"Yes, milady," he replied, leaning his head back and surveying her under half-lidded eyes.

As hard as he already was, there was still work to be done. Mai circled the top of his shaft just below the head with her forefinger and thumb and pushed down his length, keeping the "ring" of her fingers as tight as she could, something that became more challenging as she reached the base.

"Haaa..." Jet moaned breathily, his hands tightening into fists, the sinews in his forearms straining.

"Patience," Mai remonstrated, briefly squeezing the reddening head with her other hand. She ghosted her fingers over his sac for good measure, cupping and scraping feather-light fingernails over the sensitive skin, smirking at the way Jet closed his eyes and grit his teeth; it was a bit too much fun teasing him. Deciding to give him a bit of a break, she began working his submerged shaft, still keeping her hold around the base as best she could. Jet groaned and panted and emitted all sorts of exciting animalistic noises as she stroked him up and down, always carefully avoiding his swelling head until Jet cried out in frustration, one hand flying out to grip the nape of her neck, forcing her face down between his thighs. Her hands froze.

"Stop it, Jet," she told him calmly, though her heart was thudding like a war drum in her chest. The water lapped her chin and slipped into her mouth as she looked up at him, his eyes lit with a strange, hungry fire. His blunt fingertips dug into her scalp, though he did not push her forward. His breathing was frantic, hoarse, his jaw muscles tensing as he bared his teeth. "One day, I will," she said, "But if you force me to tonight..."

He pulled his hand away, gliding his palm down the side of her face and cradling her jaw. "As milady wishes," he uttered, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone, brushing the tip of her nose, and pressing against her lips. Acknowledging his restraint, she opened her mouth and sucked the digit's tip. Jet's breathing accelerated again and he pushed his thumb further into her mouth, pressing up against her soft pallet as Mai sucked and stroked him with her tongue, resuming the action of her hands on his shaft. 'Agni, I'm getting off just watching him,' she thought, digging her heel up between her thighs as Jet flushed scarlet and clenched his body against the moans that escaped him nonetheless, his head sagging forward and his eyes darkening with lust. It was intoxicating, the power she had over him.

"Mai..." Jet gasped desperately, withdrawing his thumb with obvious reluctance and leaning back, his teeth and fists clenched, "Mai! I'm going to come! Just... for Qi's sake, just...!"

He deserved some reward for his efforts, she decided. She took the head between her lips, sucking away the clear, faintly salty liquid beading out of it, then tweaked it between her middle and ring finger. Jet choked and bucked his hips; Mai closed her hand around his tip and, tightening her fingers around the base of his shaft as much as she could , squeezed and massaged the engorged red flesh. With a strangled yell, Jet came, white fluid spurting between her fingertips and dissolving in the hot water. Mai did not release him until he sagged back against the side of the spring, his head lolling back and his body shuddering with the effort to get his breathing back to normal.

'He's even bigger than I thought,' she mused, caressing his length beneath the water as she pulled herself up over him, '(Could be the old wives were right on more than a couple points?) Could be... I'll take it, in any case.' She settled herself down astride his hips, hands folded demurely on his heaving, sweat-and-steam-beaded chest, cheek resting on his collarbone. "Does that change your mind about hot springs?" she asked blandly. Her normally porcelain-pale skin had shaded rosy from the hot water and she shivered as a cool night breeze scraped over her, sweeping small tails of vapor from her arms and chest.

Jet breathed out a laugh, then groaned. "Ha, you... you made your case... pretty well," he panted hoarsely, dropping his arms into the water like they were two lead pipes. He cupped her buttocks under the water and boosted her up to bring his legs closer together. "What if I said I wasn't quite convinced yet?"

"Hmmm... I'm afraid I'll kill you if I had to repeat my argument. I can't have your brain starving for blood because it's all drained to your other head," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone, sucking in her breath as Jet's fingers slid down the cleft of her buttocks and entered the folds of her aroused flesh from behind. She lifted her chin up and idly traced her fingernails the stark red-brown stripe of the scar running from his left shoulder down to his sterum. "Besides, repetition is boring."

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Jet retorted, stung. His other hand slipped under her thigh and lifted it up, opening her further to his exploration.

"Ah-ah, there!," Mai gasped, digging her fingernails into his chest as his questing fingers briefly found the aroused bud demanding satisfaction.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed as blood tricked down from the delicate half-moons she had pierced into his skin,. "Freaking sadist - bad little girls get punished for stuff like that."

"Like you don't like it when I... urk!" Mai protested eloquently as Jet lifted her up by the hips, turned her around, and reseated her so that her back now pressed against his torso, his crotch cradling her butt.

"My turn to play," Jet purred against the side of her neck, hiking her legs up over his thighs and opening them both up wide. Mai panted as the hot water bubbled up against her center. Jet's fingers slid maddeningly over her inner thigh, teasing her until Mai snarled in annoyance and dug her nails into his kneecaps.

"What did I just say about... oh, fuck it," he grumbled, sliding two fingers into her and squeezing her left breast in his other hand, thumb stroking in ever-smaller circles around her darkening nipple. She hummed her approval, toying with the soft tip of his member and massaging her neglected breast, mirroring his rhythm and encouraging him to speed up the process. Hissing between his teeth at her provocation, he twisted his fingers up into her, catching the pulsing bud between them and squeezing. Mai yelped and bucked, water splashing as she clamped his knees for support, pleasure radiating up into her like shocks of lightning. Jet chuckled, bringing his arm across her chest as much to attend to her other breast as to cage her against him, repeating the motion. Mai whimpered, legs spasming as she sought purchase against the wall of the pool, the ground, Jet, anything. His lips and teeth worried the exposed nape of her neck, his tongue lapping away the moisture collected behind her ears as he brought her higher and higher. The heat, within and swirling around her body, became unbearable; Mai cried for release and shied away from it, afraid that her heart might burst.

"Getting tight now, eager little girl," Jet whispered to her, his voice trembling as she shuddered violently, aching sobs spilling from her lips. Her fingernails pierced his thigh, but he paid it no heed, turning his fingers up and outwards, stroking against the rough, sensitive fold of flesh hidden amid her otherwise smooth, slick inner walls. "You're so close, you're so hot... is this what you want, Mai?"

"Ah! Aaah... oh! Yes! Jet, do that, there, touch me there, oh!" she screamed, one hand flying to smother her mouth. Jet swept his fingers around and stroked back inside of her, pressing against the fold, again and again, until she threw back her head and shrieked, the world flooding white shot through with jagged crimson, her body dissolving into pure breath-stealing, nerve-wracking sensation that only slowly, blissfully faded into something she recognized as pleasure. Mai became vaguely aware of Jet's voice calling to her, but bone-melting warmth and pleasure had soaked into every fiber of her body and she ignored him.

Jet stared down at the young woman slumped in his lap, her eyes closed and rosy lips parted in a dreamy smirk of contentment. "Well... shit. That's the last time I take pointers from Big Sister Su. Crazy bitch is probably laughing her head off right now..."