Hey, my first fanfiction in years... Had to get it out of my system, you know? Criticism is very welcome.
The Quintessential Game of Truth or Dare
Sitting on her sleeping bag, huddled by the warm fire, Sakura took a long drink from a shiny aluminum flask. She was already feeling a calm sweeping over her, starting in her legs, relaxing her muscles, moving through her shoulders and finally dulling her vision and hearing. She could understand why Master Tsunade enjoyed her sake so much. Alcohol had a way of settling her nerves, breaking the tension caused by her acute senses; no longer did every rush of wind through the leaves, or dancing shadow sharpen her wits, she was free to just be.
"Man, Sakura, you've turned into such a lush..." Naruto said, standing up from his place across the fire, grabbing his half empty flask from her.
As Naruto walked back to sit on his sleeping bag on the other side of the fire, he made a grandiose swigging motion with the flask, really only ingesting a small sip. He was never a big drinker, he only snuck sake on missions because Sakura always asked him to.
Their brief mission away from Konoha was coming to a close. One last night in the vast woods of a foreign country before returning home. Sakura motioned for him to toss the flask back.
"You can finish it..." Naruto said as he threw it back in her direction.
Naruto liked it when Sakura drank. He could see a transformation. Her cheeks went rosy, her rigid posture would loosen, even her voice would change, turning slightly higher and breathy. Where once she sat, legs crossed so lady-like, arms in front, draped over her womanly form, she now sat bent leg, leaving nothing to the imagination, her arms hung over the gear she was propped against. Her body sprawled for him to see.
Sakura took another drink. As the flask came away from her mouth, she noticed that her black leather gloves were still on. Sakura peeled off the left glove until it lay inside out, flopped on the ground. Naruto watched as she hesitantly began to pull each finger of her right hand from the glove. He noticed a twitch in her wrist and the glove slowly started to slip off.
"You did it again, didn't you?" Naruto intently watched his teammate's gestures.
"Yeah, sometimes the punches just don't line up with my chakra concentrations."
The glove finally slipped off, revealing a raw, bruised fist. Naruto could see swollen fingers and Sakura's middle knuckle was enlarged and protruding in an awkward way. This wasn't a new thing he was witnessing, once again, Sakura had dislocated bones in her hand from punching without focusing her chakra correctly. Naruto watched as she grasped her finger in one hand and yanked it back into place. He saw a wince and her mouth suck in her lower lip, revealing teeth biting down. Naruto stood up and once again walked to where Sakura sat. He slumped down next to her, raising the flask of sake for her to take. She poured a little on her raw knuckles and drank the last drops before discarding the empty container to sit with the rest of the gear. Naruto let out a smirk, following the flask as it landed on a pile of clothing.
"What?" Sakura looked toward him.
"It's nothing really, I just remember a time when you wouldn't put yourself in the middle of a fight, and look at you now...busting up your knuckles." He said it with a fair amount of admiration, but like most of what Naruto would say, it never came out quite right.
Sakura smiled one of her smiles used to seduce the enemy or calm an escalating situation. Naruto smiled back.
"Truth." She said, breaking the short silence.
It was a game the two often played with each other to fill the time, to break the silence, to avoid the real matters at hand. It involved the asking and answering of questions... funny, sad, stupid even personal questions.
"Shoot." Naruto could feel the slight buzz of the sake setting in. He had always been a cheap date.
"Do you find my knuckles...my scars, do you find them repulsive?"
Naruto caught his laughter in his hands. "No...what a stupid question." He paused just long enough to let Sakura see one of his endearing smiles. "I like your beat up hands, they make mine look pretty decent." He laughed some more, coaxing a smile from Sakura.
"Setting my own bones, I feel like such a lady." She grinned, half fake, half real.
Naruto paused. He brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes, eventually passing his hands though his blonde hair, removing his headband on the way. He couldn't find the words to answer that statement. She had always tempted him in the worst ways. Even when she was dusty and bruised, yelling obscenities, to him, she was the essence of the perfect woman. But words like that never came so easily for Naruto.
"I've got a truth..." Naruto's attention span waned, he would often switch subjects rather quickly.
"Shoot."
"Sakura, of all the times you've been scared, dangerous missions and all, have you ever thought you were going to die?"
"Naruto, our lives are always in danger..." Sakura didn't know what to make of the question, she leaned her chin on her elbow, strands of hair falling to her face.
"No, that's not what I asked. Have you ever really thought you had come to the end?"
Sakura paused for a moment, looking out into the darkness. "Maybe couple of times." She stated in a matter-of-fact way.
Naruto understood that she wasn't going to go into details this night. Perhaps that would be left to another game of truth. He moved on. "So, if you thought you were going to die tonight, is there something you would regret?" He asked it so innocently, his mind flowing from one thought to another.
"I know what you would regret...Not becoming Hokage, right?" she smiled.
Naruto smiled, Sakura though distant at times, knew him too well. "Hey, you dodged my question. I get a dare from you."
"Damn." She had hoped it would have slipped by unnoticed. "I don't know..." She finally replied with a lame blanket answer to wha he had asked.
Naruto knew Sakura more than he led on. She was an open book to him. Sometimes she would make their game of truth very personal, asking him embarrassing questions about his flirtations in the big cities while training with Jyriya-sama. She would ask things about what they wore, how they would introduce themselves to him, even how they liked to be kissed.
Naruto never really liked sharing that part of his life with Sakura. He wanted her to think he was pure, in mind and intention; talking about one-night stands and quickies in broom closets made him feel like he had betrayed her while away on training. He felt like this even though they were only teammates, nothing more; even though anytime he had ever been with a girl he thought only of Sakura, once letting her name out in a moment of passion, having a slap in the face returned to him. But like a good friend and teammate he always answered her questions truthfully.
Deep down Naruto knew why she had a deep fascination with the girls he'd been with. Though he had always hoped it was her jealousy, it wasn't. Becoming a high ranking shinobi medical-nin, was a life consuming thing. Sakura's days were filled with missions, training and studying. Most of her time was with a mentor or her teammates. If Naruto hadn't gone on a solo training mission with a perverted teacher he was sure he would be just as curious. Naruto once, by accident, walked into Sakura sloppily kissing Kiba in the back alleyway of the ramen shop. He caught glimpses of her body pressed up against the wall, her leg hiked up around Kiba's waist, Kiba's hand gabbing at the underside of her thigh, his fingers reaching under, brushing against inappropriate places. Naruto remembered making a snide remark about Kiba's technique, startling the pair. Naruto will always remember the look Sakura gave him. It bled of embarrassment, of shock, her eyes wide and her lips parted...Naruto snapped himself out of his memory of that day, it could be he was sitting to close to the fire, but his face was becoming flushed. As Sakura dodged his question about regrets he saw the same embarrassed expression beginning to show.
"I know what you'd regret." Naruto stated plainly.
"Do you." Sakura was a little insulted by his presumption, she gave him a little elbow nudge.
"There's this moment...when you're with someone..."
Sakura blushed. He was being presumptuous. "When you're with someone..." She finally prodded Naruto to finish his thought.
"...For the first time..." Naruto began to blush. "eh, forget it, this is stupid. I can't explain it..." His face completely red. "I guess you feel like this..." He pointed to himself, "embarrassed, shy when you weren't before..." Naruto continued despite himself.
Sakura was listening intently, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
"The first time you really show yourself to someone...you feel...exposed, vulnerable, kind of scared, but in a good sort of way..."
Sakura could see Naruto retreating into a past memory, she could see his lips curl into a slight smile.
"It doesn't sound all that good to me." Sakura was disappointed, she was waiting for some kind of insight into the subject she didn't know at all.
"Well, I'm not explaining myself right." He couldn't find the words to make her understand. "Anyway, that's what you'd regret. It's good though, right now you don't even know you'd regret it." The words came out back-handed, but there was no apology in his voice.
Then there was silence. Sometimes that was how the game would end. The fire hissed and popped, the breeze rustled the leaves. The two looking away from each other. Sakura wished there was more sake. Naruto wished he hadn't sat so close to her.
"How do you know I don't know anyway?" Sakura was insulted by the truth.
Naruto smiled. It was always like her to want know the answers, even to questions that weren't asked. He started to think of snide retorts, but hesitated. She did look embarrassed, her skin flushed, her body shying away from him. Naruto cleared his throat.
"I just know." He replied, still looking off into the night, not wanting to make this a new conversation.
But it was becoming a conversation. "I just know...I just know." Again, Naruto was grasping at words that he couldn't string together.
Sakura wore her innocence on her sleeve, it was one of her most endearing traits. But like much of what Naruto would say, it never comes out right.
"I just know...that you have never been with anybody, how could you know?" Naruto knew it sounded awful as soon as he said it.
Sakura smiled. "So, it's that obvious?" She was trying desperately to hold on to that smile, it was always in her nature to mediate the situation.
The silence lasted a good, long while. They just stared into the fire, both glancing at the sky when the breeze blew. Sakura once got up and placed new tinder on the dying ambers, sitting back down in her same spot, not wanting to yield an inch to the embarrassing silence that had steadily been progressing to its tangible apex.
"Do you want to know?" Naruto broke the silence. His tone was of passing curiosity, just a way of filling void, his voice shallow, easily carried away by the wind.
"Well apparently I just can't understan..." Sakura snapped back, still a bit angry by the reality that she once thought a secret.
"Do you want to KNOW what I'm talking about." His tone changed. It was forceful, stopping Sakura breath, the wind powerless to drown him out.
"Yes." Sakura's answer was short and soft. Her eyes widened by his authority, it had been a long time since he had spoken to her like that.
Naruto turned to her. He was surprised by her answer. What was once just a casual thought was becoming real. They now sat crossed-legged facing each other. Leaning in, he whispered, "I'm going to ask you for that dare you owe me. Is that ok?"
Sakura looked at him, starting to realize why he just asked for permission. She stumbled trying to find the word 'yes'. In their game, the few times a dare was given, it always had to be carried out. There would be no refusing what he would ask, there just wouldn't be.
"Yes."
Naruto, leaning in, teetered on blowing off the whole situation. "I dare you to undress." He finally blurted it out.
Sakura said nothing, she turned her head down, crossed her legs and in a swift motion pulled her shirt over her head, her arms extending upward, stretching her tight abdomen, revealing her bra, light pink and slightly frilly. She wadded the shirt up placing in her lap, covering any skin near it. Her confidence flowing from the innocence she so longed to shed.
Naruto drank the sight in, the light from the fading fire danced across her skin. Her cheeks rosy, blushed, her eyes averted. He reached out, the tips of his fingers touching the thin strap anchoring her breasts inward. Sakura's body flinched away, but returned to meet his touch.
Naruto's finger continued down the strap meeting the swell of Sakura's breast. The rest of his hand pressed inward, his fingers wrapping around the curve, his thumb setting gently against the start of the little cleavage she had. He watched as shallow goosebumps crossed her skin like a wave falling to the shore.
Sakura was frozen, she could only watch Naruto's eyes follow his hand, they were wide open, taking in every detail they could. "I haven't..." She wanted to go into a lengthy explanation about how even that one time Naruto had caught her with Kiba, she had never been touched like the way he was touching her...It made her shiver. She felt like he was taking something from her...but all she managed to spit out were words much simpler. "I haven't done this before..."
Naruto looked up, meeting her stare. "What else haven't you..."
"I haven't been kissed..." Sakura couldn't help but lean into his hand. Her eyes closed. The breeze chilled her skin, his palm, warm and soft felt like home.
Naruto interrupted, "That's not tru..."
"By you." She cut him off breathless, finally understanding what Naruto was trying to tell her earlier. She felt embarrassed, exposed, and a little dirty for asking him to come closer.
Not wasting a second on rational thought, Naruto moved in, his hand moving from her chest to sweep behind her, pressing her back into him. He touched his lips to hers, parting slightly. Sakura's arms wrapped around his neck as the kiss turned more passionate.
Naruto was talented, he kept Sakura in rhythm, his tongue moving in and out to meet hers, sometimes sweeping to catch her top lip. The two, once leaning over from their cross-legged positions moved to their knees, allowing their bodies to meet. The more Sakura kissed Naruto, the more she pressed her body into his...she could feel an aching warmness drawing from her belly.
Naruto could feel his teammate pressing against him, her knees occasionally bumping his. He moved his hands down, grabbing her thighs, hoisting her legs around his waist. Naruto gently lay her down, as he leaned on top of her, giving her one last deep kiss before pulling away. He was going to ask if what was happening was ok, but couldn't get the words out as Sakura reach up and kissed his neck. His body instinctively pushed against hers, the bulge in his pants grinding exactly where Sakura felt the need to push against, both of them letting out a soft grunt.
Naruto finally resisted, pulling away. "Sakura, I..." He was, yet again, trying to find the words to explain himself. This wasn't suppose to happen, he was supposed to get a slap in the face for asking such a perverted question like 'undress yourself'. Naruto often fantasized about being with Sakura, the reality of the situation seemed to weigh heavily on him.
Sakura smiled one of those smiles, lying underneath him, "I should have just punched you..." Her arms falling across her body, covering her exposed skin. "I do know what your talking about now, I feel a little embarrassed..." She couldn't keep eye contact.
Naruto looked back down, a half naked girl laying underneath him and he couldn't even bring himself to touch her. "I guess I'm feeling a little embarrassed myself..." He smiled, his hand brushing against her cheek. Sakura sat up, putting her shirt back over her head.
"I'm glad you said that." She smiled back at him, giving a playful push.
The two still a little breathy from the experience sat side by side, looking out into the darkness once more.
Naruto interrupted the silence. "Truth..."
Sakura hinted a smile. "Shoot."
"Which would you rather eat, a raw frog or 2 week old ramen?"
And like that, the subject changed once more, that is, after all, how the game was played.
read on for an alternate lemony ending to this story.
