Warnings: language, OOCness. No offence to the elderly intended :)
"Why are we doing this again?" Dan groaned as Jiraiya dragged him through the onsen's bright noren. Flanking his other side like a guard escorting a prisoner, Sakumo was grinning in a way reminiscent of his trouble-maker days.
On their way back to Konoha after completing an assassination mission, the three shinobi were passing through the Land of Hot Water. According to Jiraiya, it was some kind of blasphemy not to stop for a good soak in the country's onsens because they were simply that good. Covered in dust and sweat and the blood of their slain enemies, Dan would be the last to protest this luxury.
No, the problem wasn't with the onsens. It was with his two incurably juvenile companions.
"After suffering all that teasing about being The Grandad Trio, we might as well get some benefit out of it, right?" Sakumo reasoned, his eyes curving into happy arches. "And what's better than a discount?"
Dan gave him an unimpressed look and suppressed the urge to dig his heels into the wood-paneled floor.
"And Tsunade bet we couldn't," Jiraiya added with a smirk over his shoulder.
"That woman," Dan sighed, his mulish expression immediately melting into fondness.
'He's head over heels,' Jiraiya mouthed to Sakumo, who chuckled and waggled his eyebrows. Dan gave them both the stink-eye but their matching grins just widened.
'What a pair of schoolgirls,' Dan groaned to himself.
The Toad Sage let go of Dan to saunter up to the front counter, leaning half his body over it. "Three people!" He said brightly to the pretty assistant sitting there, throwing in a wink for good measure.
She merely smiled back with her Standard Polite Smile. "Of course—"
"—and the senior citizens' discount please," Jiraiya added.
Her face twitched into Standard Polite Rejection. "I'm sorry, but the discount is only available to elders aged 60 and above."
Jiraiya feigned confusion. It wasn't a good look. "But we are! All that white hair, see? Although his is more silvery..." Jiraiya mused out loud as he considered Sakumo's hair.
It was quite the claim when not one of them were a day over 25 and they were wearing their shinobi uniform to boot. His accomplices nodded along with varying degrees of enthusiasm. "Stop wincing!" Sakumo hissed under his breath to Dan, elbowing him hard in the ribs.
With a commendable effort, Dan smiled his best innocent smile at the assistant but she remained unconvinced. In fact, her expression was rapidly turning stern. "Sirs..."
"I know we look quite young and spry," Sakumo said, "but I assure you it's the result of a very rigorous beauty regime."
"Gruelling, really."
Another elbowing of ribs. "...and quite expensive," Dan coughed.
Jiraiya and Sakumo nodded as if what had just come out of their mouths were not utter bull.
"In that case," the assistant began saying, making them lean forward in anticipation, "I would like know what kind of beauty regime that would be." She smiled knowingly, showing sharp little canines, and the air seemed to congeal as the awkward silence stretched on.
"Oh it's top secret!" Dan burst out saying in a nervous, tinny voice. "We'll have to kill you if we tell you, you know? Secret formula and all that, haha, ha, ha." He gulped. Boy that woman had a killer glare.
"A beautiful lady like you won't need it!" Jiraiya added with a booming laugh.
"Just look at him," Sakumo said quickly, pointing at Jiraiya as he tried to salvage the situation. "That face. He can't be anything but a dirty old man right?" Jiraiya's laughter cut off abruptly as he grimaced in offense, but he couldn't deny the truth. He was a world-class pervert after all.
"And him!" Sakumo swung an arm around Dan's shoulders, pulling him stumbling over. "He has the worst case of dementia I've ever seen. He can't even remember his name!"
Dan reeled back, horrified. "What?!"
"Hard of hearing too," Jiraiya said sagely.
"But—"
Sakumo shot Dan a narrowed-eyed look that just dared him to say his name.
"I-I—" Dan stammered.
Jiraiya shook his head, his arms crossed before his chest. "Quite the pity. He was an accomplished jounin in his youth too. Wanted to be Hokage."
Dan gave up and hung his head in shame.
"Then what about you sir?" The assistant asked dryly, eyeing Sakumo with a glint in her eye.
"I, uh—"
"Heart problem! Tremors."
Sakumo shot Jiraiya a grateful look. "Y-yes. Lots of medication, you see," the Hatake said, taking out a bunch of soldier pills.
A thought that had been niggling in Dan's mind suddenly coalesced and he jerked his head up. "Did you say that Tsunade bet we couldn't?"
Jiraiya gave him a blank look. "You really have a memory problem huh."
"Sorry guys," Dan said, flashing through rapid hand seals as his companions cried out in alarm. "I'm on Tsunade's side!" With his Spirit Transformation Technique, he stepped out of his physical boy into his living spirit form. He gave a little sigh of relief. Surely the other two couldn't carry on this farce with him being unconscious...
"Oh my god, Dan!" Sakumo shouted as he caught Dan's falling body, sounding so genuinely frightened that Dan froze. "Stay with us Dan!" Sakumo knelt down beside Dan's crumpled body and gave a theatrical sob.
"Look what you've done!" Jiraiya cried, pointing accusingly at the shocked assistant. "Getting the senior citizen's discount at the onsen was his last wish!" At this, Sakumo fisted his hands into Dan's flak jacket and buried his face into his chest, making weepy noises. "What are you going to do about this?!"
Dan couldn't believe his eyes. He hadn't thought that they would stoop so low as to make a scene. Determined shinobi were truly frightening.
There were people gathering now. Kami-sama, he was never going to live this down. A paunchy manager had appeared, only to become red-faced and sweaty with panic as the assistant babbled to him, her voice becoming shrill as she pointed at Dan's still body.
Then the manager was offering to do CPR.
"NO!" Dan screamed as Sakumo nodded gratefully to the manager. In his haste to return to his body, Dan had to redo the hand seals a few times before he got them right. "Hatake you dog-brained bastard!"
His eyes snapped open only to see the manager's curly mustache quiver before his face. "Hatake!" he screeched.
"Kami-sama..." Dan mumbled, slumped against the wet tile of the shower. The open-air onsen steamed just several metres away. He was cringing so hard that any second now he would curl up and spontaneously implode into a black hole of humiliation. "You bastards... shameless..."
Dan rolled his head along the wall supporting him to narrow his eyes at the two causes of his misery. They were perched butt naked on tiny shower stools, grinning unrepentantly as they happily took turns scrubbing each other's backs. "Traitors," Dan growled.
The look of triumph didn't fade from their faces – no, they were practically glowing with it. They smirked at each other before turning to Dan. "It's thanks to you that we got the senior citizen's discount!" they crowed in unison.
Burying his face in his hands, Dan made a muffled sound of despair. He was never going on a mission with them again.
A/N: The manager had to give the discount to them so they wouldn't sue the onsen ;)