Previously posted as part of a Multifandom Drabble Collection.

Title: An Exercise in Futility
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto
Rating: M
Summary: Sakura likes the way it feels when she lays next to her, wrapped up in sheets and limbs and teeth (Ino/Sakura).
Authors Notes: Done for pinkcrack's DRABBLE-A-THON at LJ

Hands

This means nothing. Nothing but home and warm and safe – like no place on earth. It means nothing, because it is nothing, because she's still .ENOUGH!

Lips

It was strange the first time, an accident. The way she leaned in, to tease, to taste, to touch.

Shouldn't touch. Never… never in the open.

Behind closed door, driving up a wall. All flesh and bone and want and need. It drips and aches and plunges down. Like tongues. Like hope. Like rivalries. Like secrets.

This is a secret. Hidden from the other, their friends, themselves.

What was it at first? "Just curiosity."

Sakura likes the way it feels when she lays next to her, wrapped up in sheets and limbs and teeth. Oh, she likes it when there's moving, when her fingers slide and nails graze over the swell of Ino's breasts.

Whatever the reason, so long ago they can't recall, they're here now. Sweat and pleas coax them from modesty. Sakura, long since forgotten what it felt like to crave a man, writhes and fists at the white linens of Ino's bed.

Morning finds them entwined, again.

Please.

She means it, this time, every time, she wants it, needs it, can't live, can't breathe without it. Without her.

This isn't about them, everyone in the world who isn't in the room. It isn't even about love. It's about here, and now, and GIVE ME something I can hold on to. Wishes she could live like this for always.

Not enough.

The clock chimes, and she knows its coming. (She's been counting the minutes since they were 16.) She dresses, slowly, hoping this time she can stay.

Ino folds her underwear and leans back against the headboard – still naked.

It's almost enough to make Sakura rethink this. Rethink NOT being with her.

"I have a mission." She tells her, over her shoulder. I don't care, won't care, if you don't.

(Not alone in this.)

"Oh." She doesn't notice that this is tearing her apart.

"I slept with Naruto."

"Did you?" Ino's hand traces lazy circles down her skin, just past her nipple, over her hips. She doesn't look up. Her nipples are hard. "How was he?"

Sakura thinks.

… admitting it means losing.

"I see." But she doesn't, she can't. How could she? If she saw, if she knew, she wouldn't send her away. She wouldn't do that. That thing where she touches herself right when Sakura has to leave. "Well, have fun." Her voice is breathy, teasing.

Not fair, not fair, NOT FAIR.

There are rules. Not written, or discussed, or even really implied. Just procedures, protocols that must be followed when they kiss, when the touch, when they talk. There are things they can say, lick, do, and things they can't.

And straddling Ino, holding her wrists against the headboard with so much strength the it cracks, and plunging two gloved-fingers inside her is definitely on that list, somewhere right below falling in love.

Sakura leans in, her hair falling from the headband she was in the middle of tying, (its not important now anyway) and whispers in her ear.

"Tell me you need this." It's pleading, and desperate, and a part of her breaks to hear the strain, the lust, the ache in her own voice. Ino is soaking through her gloves, making her fingers sticky. "Tell me you want it." she is losing this battle, has been for a long time now. Too stubborn to give up.

Ino says nothing, but moans and thrusts and it's almost like winning.

"This means nothing." She punctuates every syllable.

And it's true. It means nothing. Nothing but need, and breath and life. She could stop, whenever she wanted.

If only she could bring herself to want to.

Just before Ino's climax, she pulls her fingers out and kisses her. Her upper lips is salty with sweat. There is no gentleness in this.

Sakura licks her fingers, and wipes her gloves on Ino's comforter.

"I'll be back in a week."

It's open-ended, it's meant to be this way.

She won't say she needs this, can't live without it, don't want anyone to touch her but me. But it's there, in the air, in her eyes, in the way she watches her, wants her, touches, kisses, fucks her.

Nothing exists beyond this. It's an exercise in futility. One that she's winning, today at least.