Unspoken Compromise | By : randomsome1 Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 1587 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Originally posted at randomsome1.livejournal.com on February 2, 2005, then moved around due to Strikethrough '07 and Gj's eminent collapse.
Word Count: about 1300
Massive warning: Reader beware. Darker alternate reality type fic with massive angst, buckets of issues, and entirely too much sex. Don't read if you're offended by any of them, because there's no avoiding any of it.
And to think--this is the happier version.
~~~
Sakura has almost always come in third with her team, smiling at the backs of their heads and pretending that it didn't matter when they turned around to smile--or smirk--back. Their team is broken now, but some things don't change. Like before, she still watches what's going on around her before something forces her to become involved.
Naruto—wonderfully, beautifully dense Naruto—cheerfully puts up with Gaara's curiosity and proximity in the days following the redhead's return to Leaf . . . until the point when he wakes up with the Sand ninja in his bed.
Lee is a little more tolerant a few weeks down the line—possibly being still in awe of the other's abilities, possibly still afraid of him. He puts up with being sporadically followed around, even puts up with the other hogging his pillow.
The line is drawn, though, when the touches become a little too personal.
The resulting fight almost destroys Lee's apartment building.
Neither admits to their reasons outright, or at least not to the authority figures that arrive to try to stop the battle. Sakura is in the area, though, and has clearly heard Lee's shouts as he attempts to calm his overly-amorous bedmate down.
She isn't sure what she expects after that, but is sure anything seems more plausible than the suddenly speculative glances the redheaded Sand-nin turns in her direction. Gaara's been rejected by the person that somehow empathized with him after beating him, then by the person he'd nearly crippled, yet still somehow managed to bond with. She's the only other person that seems to have affected him.
She . . .
Is his last resort.
What either of them is really looking for doesn't matter, doesn't immediately come into play. She ignores him for the first short while, knowing what the only outcome of her attention can be, but eventually half-smiles at his approach, handing him food at one point, a book at another. She almost expects it when he finally breaks into her house, even lifts the blankets for him when he moves to lie beside her. But the ease with which she cuddles against him is taken to mean something more, and after only a handful of clumsy kisses and the most perfunctory exploration of her body he rolls her to her elbows and knees and mounts her.
Hands fisting in her sheets, biting her lip until it bleeds to keep from crying out, Sakura pushes back against him and wonders if he'll leave her alone afterwards.
She's wrong. On all levels, she's wrong.
After a while he doesn't wake her when he comes in anymore. Their mornings are always the same: her face-down, him wiping his saliva on her for lubricant beforehand. Then his fingers digging into her hip, a palm flat against her back as she meets his thrusts with a not-quite-feigned, not-quite-understood urgency.
She watches him once, looking over her shoulder, curious about how tightly his eyes squeeze shut and how his mouth occasionally moves, trying to comprehend exactly what it is he's building towards. When he finally notices, his hand moves from her spine to turn her face away.
Afterwards is the same, as well: a shower, possibly a meal, sometimes a few short sentences.
Temari's visiting him again?
Yeah.
It isn't about talking. It isn't about trying to make him a better person.
We were sent in to help. The missing-nin had caused too many problems.
But you cleared things up.
Yeah.
It isn't about what he's doing in the field, or what he had done. And with his eyes closed, refusing to acknowledge that it's her who elicits such a response from him even as his back arches and hands clench with the force of his climax . . . It can't be about her, either.
After everything, there's a few uncertain words at the door; then he's gone.
It isn't about love, either.
Every once in a while she doesn't have to sleep alone, doesn't have to wake to a lonely room, doesn't have much time to wonder about her missing teammate before Gaara's teeth are against her throat and sand-roughened hands begin to pull her clothing out of the way. The moments of strange security in his arms are repaid in one of the only ways she can—on her hands and knees in front of him, presenting, shivering as his cool, wet fingers run over her before he pushes himself in.
It's about a tradeoff.
That doesn't explain why, while watching him leave, she still feels so cheated.
Maybe it's really her trying to spit in the face of someone who mattered to her, who still matters if she allows herself to dwell on it. Maybe it's really him attempting to usurp what Sasuke once could have claimed, though he'll never admit that what he hates the most about the Uchiha is the other's ability to be loved rather than feared.
"Be careful," she calls after him one morning, so quietly he barely hears it. And he glances back and nods, so slightly she can barely tell.
Maybe she worries for the future. Maybe she believes that, by drowning herself in the negligent caresses of another attachment, she can free herself from the first and thus be ready for whatever may meet her, wearing a snake's smile on a once-familiar face.
She wakes already fitted against him sometime in a later night, her arms wrapped around him like she's afraid of him leaving. Maybe she is. He doesn't say anything, though; just watches her. After a moment his hands move against her in a way that's familiar, and she sits up to undress for him. In another moment, he follows suit.
Maybe he even thinks the way his body reacts to hers is love.
He stops her before she turns around this time, pressing one of his rare kisses against her mouth before pushing her onto her back. Somewhere around this point she realizes why he's never taken her face-to-face: It's too intimate. Pretending she is someone, something else becomes a lot harder with her face inches from his, when it's definitely her squirming under him.
But it seems he's ready to actually deal with her this time, lips pressing against hers again as his hand slides between her legs to stimulate her. She bucks against him impatiently; he's never felt the need to take his time before, and her body demands more than the insertion of just his fingers. This is no different; a slight adjustment and a sure thrust bring her to gasping fullness.
Maybe she thinks that through him, she can forget.
This way she can touch him as well as see his face, her hips lifting to meet his in a progressively quickening rhythm. Eventually she's panting, begging him for something she doesn't quite comprehend as his gasps echo her muted whimpers, his tightening grip mirroring the tightening of her muscles as the friction and impact and rub and slide of their bodies together becomes too much and everything in her clenches down around him, all of her willpower devoted to silencing herself before her muscles spasm and she cries out sharply in shocked pleasure.
She wasn't expecting it to be like that.
Judging from the wide-eyed stare he directs down at her, he hadn't been expecting anything like that either.
Things aren't perfect afterwards. He still pulls away too quickly, still takes her pillow after they quietly clean up and head back to bed. She makes a point of kissing him goodnight anyway.
All they really have is maybe.
Maybe things will turn out all right regardless.
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