1. character. (my voltrons aren't here but they're fair game too.) 2. leave a prompt or something, can be smutty or not 3. if you need inspiration i definitely did not* steal the following from the random scenario meme:
① Cuddling → For whatever reason, characters feel like being close and cuddling. ② Pillow talk → After the main event, characters are up for some pillow talk. ③ Celebration → Anniversary or some other big event is taking place and characters want to celebrate! ④ Love confession → Someone has finally decided to confess their love and today is the day! ⑤ Appreciation → You feel the need to show appreciation for that person closest to you, even if it's just a pat on the back. ⑥ Apologies → You made a mistake and now it's time to make it up in some way you know the other can't refuse! ⑦ Get back together → Why did you break up again exactly? Whatever the reason, it was a huge mistake and you both know you can work through it. ⑧ Date night → You've planned for a wonderful night together and you can't wait to get it started. ⑨ Family → You've either found out you're pregnant or you've already got that addition to your family. ⑩ Marriage → You're just about to get hitched or maybe you're enjoying your honeymoon. Maybe you've been together for years now! Whatever the case, it's time for that next big step. ⑪ Meeting again → It's time for that happy reunion finally! ⑫ Love at first sight → For whatever reason, you are now insanely in love with the first person you set eyes on. ⑬ Flirtation → You can't resist to do a little bit of harmless flirtation all of a sudden. ⑭ In the snow → Look outside! It's a winter wonderland, so why not go out and play in it? ⑮ Engagement → You've planned it all out and now it's time to finally pop the question. ⑯ Friendly games → You've set up the game station or board games for a friendly competition! ⑰ Gift → Time to give that special someone a gift just because. ⑱ Recovery → You're taking care of someone who's just recovered from some illness or injury. ⑲ Healing → Time to help mend that someone who's been through hell and back. ⑳ Better than ever → You've finally got everything you've ever wanted here. What is your ideal life and who does it include?
4. i'm just including this gif because it's funny.
[He knows what he's doing- he just isn't really thinking about it. There are a hundred thoughts crowding his head, all eager for his attention and ultimately too much for him to pick out just one thing to focus on. The racing of his heart and the sound of his pulse in his ears is so loud he doesn't know how the whole world doesn't hear it.
This is their honeymoon- some time spent away from the village to celebrate, just the two of them. And they deserve it after everything don't they? Just this little bit of happiness, this small sliver. Naruto looks back over his shoulder, it's a self-conscious gesture because the hallway is empty. This late at night, in the privacy of this place-
Naruto's palm rests on the wooden slat of the sliding door. The paper squares are so thin and his senses are so acute that there's no way to miss her inside.
A burning candle throws her silhouette across the screen. Naruto inhales, flushed with exertion and the rush to get here, to be in time for- something. In time for what? The wedding was over, it was done. Then why is he...?
His jaw snaps shut. The door slides open. This really is a beautiful place for a honeymoon.
The problem is that Naruto had one of his own already- and Sakura is here with someone else.]
[ She senses him coming, of course, and at first wonders if she's hallucinating. If maybe that last flask of sake had been excessive, even with her artificially speeding up its metabolism. There's a thin line between drinking enough to redden cheeks and soothe nerves and drinking enough to get well and truly drunk, and perhaps, somehow, despite trying not to, she tipped over it.
She doesn't feel that drunk, though, and it's been hours. It seems improbable, but then it seems equally improbable that Naruto really is in her room.
Their room. Hers and Sasuke's.
Her hands pause midway between pulling her robe over her shoulders and reaching for the belt. Considers, again, if this could be genjutsu or a figment of her wildest imaginings before completing the action. She knots the belt tightly and steps forward to slide the screen door open.
The ends of her short hair are damp. It's obvious she's just out of the bath.
And he really is standing there. ]
Naruto? What are you doing here...?
[ It would not be uncharacteristic of her to get angry about the intrusion of her privacy, but there is nothing like that in either her voice or demeanor. ]
[Sakura's in a robe. She smells like soap, and her skin is pink and flushed and Naruto stands in the doorway, leaning on the frame of the wall and the edge of the door momentarily dumbstruck by the bead of moisture sliding down the column of her throat. It's almost at her collarbone.
It's obvious she's just out of the bath in the same way it's obvious that Naruto has no business being here. That he ran the whole way. He didn't bring a jacket. When he'd left the house and started walking he hadn't planned on leaving the village, he hadn't planned on- any of this.
Naruto doesn't feel himself breathing. The candle's light catches on the band around his ring finger.]
I love you.
[He says it as if too little too late doesn't matter. As if he has any right to this moment, to her, to this. Like this isn't her wedding night and like she hadn't kissed his cheek before he left for his own.]
[ Once, years ago, Sakura had sliced Naruto's ribcage open and shoved her hand inside. Wrapped her hand around his heart because it had failed him and he was dying and, with no chakra left, there was no other way she could keep his blood flowing. She still feels the weight of it sometimes in nightmares.
In this moment, with the way her breath sucks in harshly, it's almost as if he's done the same thing. She lifts her hand to cover her sternum, curling her fingers in the folds of her robe, as if to make sure he hasn't. ]
I —
[ Her eyes are wide and she is at a complete loss for words. She's actually at a complete loss for a thought, anything to make sense of what he just said.
It's not as if she hadn't known this at one point. Sakura was acutely, painfully aware of his feelings while Sasuke was off hunting the Kages, and Naruto was off hunting him, and Sakura felt for the first time the real weight of his transgressions and their bonds. She knew how he felt then, but she had always assumed he had grown out of it in a way she had never grown out of loving the man whose ring she wears. Told herself that perhaps it had never grown deep roots, and maybe that was for the best, because all she has ever done with the knowledge of it was use it to hurt him. It's easier for her to rationalize it that way, but she can't ]
Naruto, I...
[ can't dismiss this the same way, not when he looks like this.
Can't get anything else out, either. All she can do is stand there, eyes locked with the tawny blue of his even as it seems the floor is sliding out underneath her. ]
[Naruto has never been a man that asks for things, and this is no exception. He hasn't turned his thoughts to what he couldn't have, he doesn't look to the people around him for favor or gifts- Naruto has only ever accepted what he's been given, nothing more and nothing less. In that light he has no idea how to describe this.
Maybe team seven has always been keeping secrets- from themselves and from each other. He'd known even as a child that there where words in the way Sasuke looked at him and in the way Sakura's eyes slid away. He'd always known what her answer would be because the moment Naruto had realized he was in love with her was synonymous with the moment he realizes how in love she was- with Sasuke. In his own way Naruto is continuing the cycle- their tendency to hurt and heal one another in equal measure.
Naruto pushes away from the door and doesn't say anything else because there aren't anymore words. In the exchange of fists he's had with her husband that conversation had always breathed between them, what it meant to see inside another's heart. He doesn't have that with Sakura, because they'd never had to fight each other to do it. She was there when he'd been doubled over with grief. He'd been there when her resolve crumbled.
He's taller than her now, a difference he's acutely aware of when his fingers curl around her upper arms. The door is open at his back and the fabric of her robe is soft and thin and Naruto holds her gaze right up until his head lowers, and he catches her mouth with his own.]
[ This is exactly the way she'd thought this would go. She'd always imagined this for her wedding night: her husband coming into their room, telling her he loved her with a sort of awe and desperation that would lift her heart into her throat. He would hold her, kiss her, take her to bed and she's wearing nothing but a robe right now because it seems silly, doesn't it, to get dressed when you know it will all be taken off almost immediately?
It's the same trajectory, except it's not her husband doing these things, it's Naruto. And while Sakura has never been shy about using her fists, and even though she could have easily shoved him back, she doesn't. Every single one of her carefully constructed boundaries, every lie she's told herself about his feelings and her own, they all fold like a bad hand of cards when she leans up to meet him, just the way she imagined she would. Even in spite of the weight that settles itself on her chest.
This is wrong and she knows it. Naruto knows it. He left his wife behind to crash his friends' honeymoon. But there's no right or wrong in the desperate clutch of her fists in his shirt, only could have, should have been and she can't tell who she'll be angrier at for that: him or herself. ]
welcome to hell the wifi password is ilovegarbage666
[Until he'd reached her door it was as if the whole world was holding its breath. Naruto has stood on enough precipices to recognize them before he gets there- he'd known. He'd known when there was plenty of time to turn back and he'd known before he'd opened his mouth.
It's far too late now.
Leaving his house had been a decision the way that leaving the village had; Naruto might not have had a plan for what he intended to do, but he'd let his feet carry him out of the gate the way he'd let his heart lead him here. He isn't thinking about his wife back home, round with child. He isn't thinking about where Sasuke might be or that they could be caught.
With Sakura, it's always been simple. They share too much for anything else. She's seen the very worst of him, her hand his been inside his chest, they'd sat beside one another and cried. What could he possibly have to hide from her?
From silence to sound, Naruto is aware of every distended second before he kisses her, and then the moment her hands are on him he can't stop moving. One arm slips low, pulls at her thigh while the opposite grips her side- tugs her up, off of her feet. Into his body. It had been nothing like this with Hinata. The taste of Sakura's mouth is scalding, a brand he's going to remember for the rest of his live and one he'd wanted for more than half of it and he can't even stop to savor it. Her robe catches when he lifts her into his arms, pulling the lean curve of her body onto his hips with the urgency and chaos of stars colliding. He isn't trying to outrun getting caught. He's surrendering to the inevitable.
Naruto barely has her off the floor before he's moving to her wedding bed, pouring her backwards and following her down into the sheets.]
[ She should have known it would be like this, with him. She should have expected that Naruto would be in this as he is in everything else. All or nothing, throwing the whole of himself into it and heedless of fear and what he ought to do. Truth be told, she hadn't given it much thought because even at the height of her denial, she knew it was a dangerous thing to think about. But with her legs wrapped tightly around his hips there's no more room for that pretense, and Sakura can't help but think, dimly, how different it is with Sasuke. Her husband isn't cold in bed, not nearly. But she has never been kissed with every inch of his vulnerabilities laid bare like this.
If Naruto had hesitated, if he'd waited for an answer, she might have come to her senses and stopped this then and there, but he doesn't. And there are no walls left between them, nothing to hide her own vulnerabilities and that would be perfectly terrifying with anyone else.
With him, it isn't. There are words for that, words that, for her own sanity, she has done her best to rationalize away. With Naruto laying her back on her wedding bed like they aren't both married to other people and with her grabbing desperately at his shoulders to pull his weight down over her, there's no time for reason. ]
I love you. I do.
[ The only other time she has said these words to him, her cheeks and nose were red from the cold and there were a half a dozen witnesses. Here, the room is warm, and it still smells like the woods Naruto's run through but there's no one else to hear them but the flickering candlelight that dances over their skin. This time, Sakura means it.
But she loves Sasuke, too. ]
We shouldn't —
[ do this, but it hardly qualifies as a real protest when it's gasped out like lovers' sighs, and when her thighs are still pressed tightly to his hips, and when there is every invitation in the arch of her neck. ]
[It's a puff of breath and an admission of guilt and a hundred other things but among them- no intention to stop. The unstoppable force, Naruto is lost to his own momentum and those two words acknowledge everything she offers him. He's always known. He's always known that in her own way, she has loved him. Not from the start, but she has loved him just as fiercely. Just as deeply. Naruto catches her bottom lip between his own, petal soft, and thinks you've held my entire heart in your hand and I don't want to pretend anymore.
She tells him she loves him. It's nothing like the last time she'd said those words.]
Sakura. [The beginning and end of a sentence. A plea. His mouth follows the bared line of her throat, the place where her pulse beats and the hollow where that single bead of water had caught his eye. Cradled between her thighs, one arm still tight around her waist, there is no mistaking this for anything else. The fabric of her robe lifts, gathering in the juncture of his hip as Naruto places an open mouthed kiss beneath her ear. If she sends him away, he'll go. But he's willing to move heaven and earth to be here now- Naruto has made his decision.]
[ Where Naruto had seen a precipice earlier, Sakura sees it now. It's like standing on a knife's edge. Either way she goes, there's no turning back from the ledge, just a fall on either side. If they do this, if she doesn't stop them, there will be no taking it back. They will have crossed a line and if they're caught, well. No one looks kindly on adultery. She doesn't know how she could explain this to Hinata, let alone Sasuke.
But she considers the alternative. Sending him away, pulling her robe back around her and acting like this had never happened. Carrying this mutual secret, this mutual longing with them. Having families, living their separate lives, and never able to be truly honest with each other again. Letting him go.
Her breath stutters as his lips find the sensitive skin under her ear. ]
Don't stop.
[ She knows what things she can live with — and what things she can't.
Small hands work smooth down his sides until they find the hem of his shirt, wiggling their way underneath until they find the skin at his back. Urges him to rock down against her. By now her robe is barely decent, exposing long tracks of her own skin and she doesn't care so long as he keeps loving her. ]
[He doesn't have it in him to turn around and pretend this never happened. Maybe he could return to the village; to his wife and his job and the responsibilities he'd chosen for himself- but nothing would ever be the same. Naruto doesn't know how to pretend; he's worn his heart on his sleeve since he was a child and as he's gotten older, taller, as the lines in his face have started to show- he isn't as noisy and unafraid as he once was- but his heart is still easy to read. He's still eager to be known. He couldn't stop if he tried.
Maybe this was always going to happen and maybe it could have been prevented, but it's impossible to imagine a future on any side of this moment. He might be able to walk out of the door, but he would still see Sakura when she returned home. He would still speak to her, he would still know the exact shape and softness of her mouth. If walking this path has taught him nothing, it's that some collisions are meant to happen. Turning away from her, from himself, and from this, is the same was running away.
Sakura's legs open beneath him. One of Naruto's hands fall to the bend of her knee, weight rolling into the v of her hips. The nearness of her, the heat of her body, pulls an exhale right out of him.]
[ This shouldn't feel so natural. It shouldn't come so easily to her to move with him, like this, but maybe it isn't so surprising. They've been teammates so long it feels like a lifetime has gone by where they fought, and worked, and walked together. His hand catches behind her knee and her legs fall open to accomodate him and she sighs in time with him and it's just so breathtakingly easy. Effortless. They each have such a physical awareness of the other that, really, she shouldn't be shocked that what seems so instinctive on the battlefield is as simple as heartbeat on a bed, but she is.
I won't, he says, and she knows that, right or wrong, this was the only choice she could have made tonight.
Sakura's hands smooth up his back, his shirt bunching up as she goes. The way Sakura leans up to kiss him is different from before, languid and slow and indulgent. If they were being rational, they would be in a hurry to avoid being caught, but then again if they were being rational they wouldn't be doing this at all. She only wishes she'd done it before. ]
you have never been innocent in your whole life ever
[It's the closest he can come to addressing the enormity between them, but maybe it encompasses too many thoughts and emotions to be properly understood. Naruto understands that it isn't the first time he's felt this way, like he's been unsure of where the future might go and what he's supposed to do to change things- but it's never stopped his friends from believing in him, or following him to the end. In a way Sakura has been the most pragmatic, questioning Naruto's limits when everyone else had expected him to be entirely without them. The words he murmurs into the nape of her neck are an admission- he wants to be honest, even when they're here doing this most dishonest thing. He wants her to know that there is no plan and that from here on, they'll be trying to figure things out together.
He wants her to know that he- that he's vulnerable here too; if something happens, he'll do everything he can to catch her, but he won't be able to light the way. Underneath that is a thrumming that's been there since they were children.
Naruto needs people. He needs her, and he needs Sasuke- the two points that have been north and south, helping him know who he is and helping him find which way to go. He knows that he's strong and that all the things that come after are going to be a fight of a different kind- but he can't do it without her. He might survive, but he won't be the same.
His forehead rests against her cheek, mouth finding a path beneath her jaw as her hands guide him in. The heat of her skin radiates, a warm line that he can feel soaking through his clothes- from his belly to the high point of his hips, where her legs capture him.]
I couldn't. [An apology.] I'm sorry I waited so long, but I just couldn't- [pretend.
Naruto's knees spread, anchoring himself to the mattress; he leans backward just enough to begin pulling his shirt over and off. One more inconsequential barrier between them.]
rude & untrue, there were at least four minutes where i was pure
[ It would be a sobering admission, except that Sakura feels remarkably clear-headed for what they're doing. This isn't some temporary madness on their parts. Swept up in passion, yes, but there were choices made and opportunities for either of them to turn back that they both rejected. It is enormous, what they're doing. And Naruto admits that he's lost, and Sakura knows that he doesn't mean the particulars of intimacy. It's everything that will come, after. ]
Neither do I.
[ There's a quiet sort of acknowledgment there, an acceptance: she hadn't expected him to know. Doesn't expect him to carry her through it. Sakura knows he would have tried, and maybe he will still try, but she spent far too long being a burden on their team and she has no intention of being that again. She needs him as much as he needs her, as much as a tree needs roots, but she won't let him carry this weight alone.
There's no guide for this. There isn't exactly a manual on how affairs are conducted. They'll simply have to navigate by the stars, together.
Sakura's feet drop to the mattress so that he can sit up. She reaches to help him pull his shirt over his head, even though he surely doesn't need the help, then cups his face in her hands. ]
I thought your feelings had changed. I thought — I thought maybe that would be better.
[ For him to have the things Hinata can offer: a doting wife, an unconditional devotion. All Sakura has to offer him is rough edges and a heart divided.
[Maybe all acts of love are selfish- it's something Naruto has never stopped to contemplate because by and large, his experience with that emotion has been about power and endurance. Sakura and Sasuke had been an inevitable conclusion of a kind, two points that Naruto had done everything in his power to bring together without pausing to consider the finer points between. He hadn't been surprised to hear that they married because, wasn't that what people were supposed to do? Wasn't that always going to be the way things panned out? And then Hinata- Hinata had just always been there. She had been waiting for him since he was a boy, her family and identity just as tied to their village.
He liked Hinata. She was kind, even if she was a little quiet. She'd been through so much and had supported him in her own way.
Wasn't this what he was supposed to do?
It hadn't been until this night, sitting in his office and looking at the photo on his desk that Naruto realized he'd never stopped to question it all. Team seven had frowned back at him, three children inexorably tied together, their destinies and histories cross-crossing generations. It was as if something had suddenly broken and he couldn't bear it any longer.
His forehead comes to rest against her own, the bead of color there, and Naruto's eyes close. The rise and fall of their chests synchronize effortlessly.]
[ It's peculiar, the way he says it. Like an obligation, or a debt being paid, like it was something they were expected to do. It's funny how Naruto voices the feeling that Sakura, no matter how bookish she is, has no words or definitions for. She cannot pinpoint where it happened, but somewhere along the line their conclusions had been penned and all that was left was for them to reach them. Loving Sasuke had never been a choice Sakura made.
Perhaps love never is. But something profoundly sad twists in her gut. The right thing. What sort of foundation is that, for a marriage? Why had it taken them so long to see this?
Her eyes screw shut, briefly, in an attempt to stem frustrated tears. She's not entirely successful, and she hates it. ]
I wish I'd known —
[ that he was still in love with her. Or that she'd known her own heart.
(The truth, though, was that she had never dared to examine it too closely. Because deep down, Sakura knew what she'd find there. Maybe turning a blind eye to it wasn't a kindness so much as it was a profound cowardice.) ]
I wish I'd told you.
[ Even now, he'd had to make the overture before she could voice what she'd known in a deep, visceral way for a while. Naruto always had been braver.
A shuddering breath, and then Sakura tilts her head so their mouths slot together better. ]
Naruto... [ Please, but even she's not sure what she's asking for. Forgiveness, maybe. Or keep going. ]
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10.... sort of....
This is their honeymoon- some time spent away from the village to celebrate, just the two of them. And they deserve it after everything don't they? Just this little bit of happiness, this small sliver. Naruto looks back over his shoulder, it's a self-conscious gesture because the hallway is empty. This late at night, in the privacy of this place-
Naruto's palm rests on the wooden slat of the sliding door. The paper squares are so thin and his senses are so acute that there's no way to miss her inside.
A burning candle throws her silhouette across the screen. Naruto inhales, flushed with exertion and the rush to get here, to be in time for- something. In time for what? The wedding was over, it was done. Then why is he...?
His jaw snaps shut. The door slides open.
This really is a beautiful place for a honeymoon.
The problem is that Naruto had one of his own already- and Sakura is here with someone else.]
quietly yells
She doesn't feel that drunk, though, and it's been hours. It seems improbable, but then it seems equally improbable that Naruto really is in her room.
Their room. Hers and Sasuke's.
Her hands pause midway between pulling her robe over her shoulders and reaching for the belt. Considers, again, if this could be genjutsu or a figment of her wildest imaginings before completing the action. She knots the belt tightly and steps forward to slide the screen door open.
The ends of her short hair are damp. It's obvious she's just out of the bath.
And he really is standing there. ]
Naruto? What are you doing here...?
[ It would not be uncharacteristic of her to get angry about the intrusion of her privacy, but there is nothing like that in either her voice or demeanor. ]
yells not at all quietly
It's obvious she's just out of the bath in the same way it's obvious that Naruto has no business being here. That he ran the whole way. He didn't bring a jacket. When he'd left the house and started walking he hadn't planned on leaving the village, he hadn't planned on- any of this.
Naruto doesn't feel himself breathing. The candle's light catches on the band around his ring finger.]
I love you.
[He says it as if too little too late doesn't matter. As if he has any right to this moment, to her, to this. Like this isn't her wedding night and like she hadn't kissed his cheek before he left for his own.]
I love you.
YELLS MORE
In this moment, with the way her breath sucks in harshly, it's almost as if he's done the same thing. She lifts her hand to cover her sternum, curling her fingers in the folds of her robe, as if to make sure he hasn't. ]
I —
[ Her eyes are wide and she is at a complete loss for words. She's actually at a complete loss for a thought, anything to make sense of what he just said.
It's not as if she hadn't known this at one point. Sakura was acutely, painfully aware of his feelings while Sasuke was off hunting the Kages, and Naruto was off hunting him, and Sakura felt for the first time the real weight of his transgressions and their bonds. She knew how he felt then, but she had always assumed he had grown out of it in a way she had never grown out of loving the man whose ring she wears. Told herself that perhaps it had never grown deep roots, and maybe that was for the best, because all she has ever done with the knowledge of it was use it to hurt him. It's easier for her to rationalize it that way, but she can't ]
Naruto, I...
[ can't dismiss this the same way, not when he looks like this.
Can't get anything else out, either. All she can do is stand there, eyes locked with the tawny blue of his even as it seems the floor is sliding out underneath her. ]
FLINGS SELF OFF CLIFF
Maybe team seven has always been keeping secrets- from themselves and from each other. He'd known even as a child that there where words in the way Sasuke looked at him and in the way Sakura's eyes slid away. He'd always known what her answer would be because the moment Naruto had realized he was in love with her was synonymous with the moment he realizes how in love she was- with Sasuke. In his own way Naruto is continuing the cycle- their tendency to hurt and heal one another in equal measure.
Naruto pushes away from the door and doesn't say anything else because there aren't anymore words. In the exchange of fists he's had with her husband that conversation had always breathed between them, what it meant to see inside another's heart. He doesn't have that with Sakura, because they'd never had to fight each other to do it. She was there when he'd been doubled over with grief. He'd been there when her resolve crumbled.
He's taller than her now, a difference he's acutely aware of when his fingers curl around her upper arms. The door is open at his back and the fabric of her robe is soft and thin and Naruto holds her gaze right up until his head lowers, and he catches her mouth with his own.]
foLLOWS
It's the same trajectory, except it's not her husband doing these things, it's Naruto. And while Sakura has never been shy about using her fists, and even though she could have easily shoved him back, she doesn't. Every single one of her carefully constructed boundaries, every lie she's told herself about his feelings and her own, they all fold like a bad hand of cards when she leans up to meet him, just the way she imagined she would. Even in spite of the weight that settles itself on her chest.
This is wrong and she knows it. Naruto knows it. He left his wife behind to crash his friends' honeymoon. But there's no right or wrong in the desperate clutch of her fists in his shirt, only could have, should have been and she can't tell who she'll be angrier at for that: him or herself. ]
welcome to hell the wifi password is ilovegarbage666
It's far too late now.
Leaving his house had been a decision the way that leaving the village had; Naruto might not have had a plan for what he intended to do, but he'd let his feet carry him out of the gate the way he'd let his heart lead him here. He isn't thinking about his wife back home, round with child. He isn't thinking about where Sasuke might be or that they could be caught.
With Sakura, it's always been simple.
They share too much for anything else. She's seen the very worst of him, her hand his been inside his chest, they'd sat beside one another and cried. What could he possibly have to hide from her?
From silence to sound, Naruto is aware of every distended second before he kisses her, and then the moment her hands are on him he can't stop moving. One arm slips low, pulls at her thigh while the opposite grips her side- tugs her up, off of her feet. Into his body. It had been nothing like this with Hinata. The taste of Sakura's mouth is scalding, a brand he's going to remember for the rest of his live and one he'd wanted for more than half of it and he can't even stop to savor it. Her robe catches when he lifts her into his arms, pulling the lean curve of her body onto his hips with the urgency and chaos of stars colliding. He isn't trying to outrun getting caught. He's surrendering to the inevitable.
Naruto barely has her off the floor before he's moving to her wedding bed, pouring her backwards and following her down into the sheets.]
where IS sasuke in this thread we just don't know
If Naruto had hesitated, if he'd waited for an answer, she might have come to her senses and stopped this then and there, but he doesn't. And there are no walls left between them, nothing to hide her own vulnerabilities and that would be perfectly terrifying with anyone else.
With him, it isn't. There are words for that, words that, for her own sanity, she has done her best to rationalize away. With Naruto laying her back on her wedding bed like they aren't both married to other people and with her grabbing desperately at his shoulders to pull his weight down over her, there's no time for reason. ]
I love you. I do.
[ The only other time she has said these words to him, her cheeks and nose were red from the cold and there were a half a dozen witnesses. Here, the room is warm, and it still smells like the woods Naruto's run through but there's no one else to hear them but the flickering candlelight that dances over their skin. This time, Sakura means it.
But she loves Sasuke, too. ]
We shouldn't —
[ do this, but it hardly qualifies as a real protest when it's gasped out like lovers' sighs, and when her thighs are still pressed tightly to his hips, and when there is every invitation in the arch of her neck. ]
in a closet recording, probably
[It's a puff of breath and an admission of guilt and a hundred other things but among them- no intention to stop. The unstoppable force, Naruto is lost to his own momentum and those two words acknowledge everything she offers him. He's always known. He's always known that in her own way, she has loved him. Not from the start, but she has loved him just as fiercely. Just as deeply. Naruto catches her bottom lip between his own, petal soft, and thinks you've held my entire heart in your hand and I don't want to pretend anymore.
She tells him she loves him. It's nothing like the last time she'd said those words.]
Sakura. [The beginning and end of a sentence. A plea. His mouth follows the bared line of her throat, the place where her pulse beats and the hollow where that single bead of water had caught his eye. Cradled between her thighs, one arm still tight around her waist, there is no mistaking this for anything else. The fabric of her robe lifts, gathering in the juncture of his hip as Naruto places an open mouthed kiss beneath her ear. If she sends him away, he'll go. But he's willing to move heaven and earth to be here now- Naruto has made his decision.]
lmfdksaoijfekj seems legit
But she considers the alternative. Sending him away, pulling her robe back around her and acting like this had never happened. Carrying this mutual secret, this mutual longing with them. Having families, living their separate lives, and never able to be truly honest with each other again. Letting him go.
Her breath stutters as his lips find the sensitive skin under her ear. ]
Don't stop.
[ She knows what things she can live with — and what things she can't.
Small hands work smooth down his sides until they find the hem of his shirt, wiggling their way underneath until they find the skin at his back. Urges him to rock down against her. By now her robe is barely decent, exposing long tracks of her own skin and she doesn't care so long as he keeps loving her. ]
why do you hurt me this way
Maybe this was always going to happen and maybe it could have been prevented, but it's impossible to imagine a future on any side of this moment. He might be able to walk out of the door, but he would still see Sakura when she returned home. He would still speak to her, he would still know the exact shape and softness of her mouth. If walking this path has taught him nothing, it's that some collisions are meant to happen. Turning away from her, from himself, and from this, is the same was running away.
Sakura's legs open beneath him. One of Naruto's hands fall to the bend of her knee, weight rolling into the v of her hips. The nearness of her, the heat of her body, pulls an exhale right out of him.]
I won't.
i am innocent???
I won't, he says, and she knows that, right or wrong, this was the only choice she could have made tonight.
Sakura's hands smooth up his back, his shirt bunching up as she goes. The way Sakura leans up to kiss him is different from before, languid and slow and indulgent. If they were being rational, they would be in a hurry to avoid being caught, but then again if they were being rational they wouldn't be doing this at all. She only wishes she'd done it before. ]
you have never been innocent in your whole life ever
[It's the closest he can come to addressing the enormity between them, but maybe it encompasses too many thoughts and emotions to be properly understood. Naruto understands that it isn't the first time he's felt this way, like he's been unsure of where the future might go and what he's supposed to do to change things- but it's never stopped his friends from believing in him, or following him to the end. In a way Sakura has been the most pragmatic, questioning Naruto's limits when everyone else had expected him to be entirely without them. The words he murmurs into the nape of her neck are an admission- he wants to be honest, even when they're here doing this most dishonest thing. He wants her to know that there is no plan and that from here on, they'll be trying to figure things out together.
He wants her to know that he- that he's vulnerable here too; if something happens, he'll do everything he can to catch her, but he won't be able to light the way. Underneath that is a thrumming that's been there since they were children.
Naruto needs people. He needs her, and he needs Sasuke- the two points that have been north and south, helping him know who he is and helping him find which way to go. He knows that he's strong and that all the things that come after are going to be a fight of a different kind- but he can't do it without her. He might survive, but he won't be the same.
His forehead rests against her cheek, mouth finding a path beneath her jaw as her hands guide him in. The heat of her skin radiates, a warm line that he can feel soaking through his clothes- from his belly to the high point of his hips, where her legs capture him.]
I couldn't. [An apology.] I'm sorry I waited so long, but I just couldn't- [pretend.
Naruto's knees spread, anchoring himself to the mattress; he leans backward just enough to begin pulling his shirt over and off. One more inconsequential barrier between them.]
rude & untrue, there were at least four minutes where i was pure
Neither do I.
[ There's a quiet sort of acknowledgment there, an acceptance: she hadn't expected him to know. Doesn't expect him to carry her through it. Sakura knows he would have tried, and maybe he will still try, but she spent far too long being a burden on their team and she has no intention of being that again. She needs him as much as he needs her, as much as a tree needs roots, but she won't let him carry this weight alone.
There's no guide for this. There isn't exactly a manual on how affairs are conducted. They'll simply have to navigate by the stars, together.
Sakura's feet drop to the mattress so that he can sit up. She reaches to help him pull his shirt over his head, even though he surely doesn't need the help, then cups his face in her hands. ]
I thought your feelings had changed. I thought — I thought maybe that would be better.
[ For him to have the things Hinata can offer: a doting wife, an unconditional devotion. All Sakura has to offer him is rough edges and a heart divided.
It really is selfish of her to do this. ]
reciepts
[Maybe all acts of love are selfish- it's something Naruto has never stopped to contemplate because by and large, his experience with that emotion has been about power and endurance. Sakura and Sasuke had been an inevitable conclusion of a kind, two points that Naruto had done everything in his power to bring together without pausing to consider the finer points between. He hadn't been surprised to hear that they married because, wasn't that what people were supposed to do? Wasn't that always going to be the way things panned out? And then Hinata- Hinata had just always been there. She had been waiting for him since he was a boy, her family and identity just as tied to their village.
He liked Hinata. She was kind, even if she was a little quiet. She'd been through so much and had supported him in her own way.
Wasn't this what he was supposed to do?
It hadn't been until this night, sitting in his office and looking at the photo on his desk that Naruto realized he'd never stopped to question it all. Team seven had frowned back at him, three children inexorably tied together, their destinies and histories cross-crossing generations. It was as if something had suddenly broken and he couldn't bear it any longer.
His forehead comes to rest against her own, the bead of color there, and Naruto's eyes close. The rise and fall of their chests synchronize effortlessly.]
I don't know what happened. I just couldn't-
sweats
Perhaps love never is. But something profoundly sad twists in her gut. The right thing. What sort of foundation is that, for a marriage? Why had it taken them so long to see this?
Her eyes screw shut, briefly, in an attempt to stem frustrated tears. She's not entirely successful, and she hates it. ]
I wish I'd known —
[ that he was still in love with her. Or that she'd known her own heart.
(The truth, though, was that she had never dared to examine it too closely. Because deep down, Sakura knew what she'd find there. Maybe turning a blind eye to it wasn't a kindness so much as it was a profound cowardice.) ]
I wish I'd told you.
[ Even now, he'd had to make the overture before she could voice what she'd known in a deep, visceral way for a while. Naruto always had been braver.
A shuddering breath, and then Sakura tilts her head so their mouths slot together better. ]
Naruto... [ Please, but even she's not sure what she's asking for. Forgiveness, maybe. Or keep going. ]