Okay, here I am with a new, very short one-shot. The reason this is not being posted in Sparks is simply because it is not a part of Sparks.
I stumbled upon the song What would you do by Bastille about a month ago and my brain sort of took it and ran with it and this is the end result of that. It is an AU songfic with the characters of Naruto based on the 'plot' of the song with a little extra of my own background added in. I own neither the song, lyrics, nor the characters and only wrote this because I couldn't think of anything else until I did. I finished it weeks ago but hesitated to post it because of the incredibly dark nature. Seriously guys, this is DARK! When I wrote it I wanted to bring a sort of catharsis to the song because I feel like it doesn't really have an ending but upon further thought and because I failed spectacularly at doing that, I have decided to leave it in the theme of the song where there is no real purpose other than that it happened.
Once again, I will warn you, it is DARK. It deals with strippers, prostitution, drugs, rape and death. If this upsets you, please do not read it! If you choose to do so anyway, please do not blame me for upsetting you. I warned you. Once again, there is really no purpose to this story other than that it happened, and after wrestling with the decision I have decided to post it because I feel literature (if I have the audacity to call my writing literature, even though I am fully aware it is not) should mirror reality. Sometimes, things happen and there isn't a reason. There is no grand lesson to be learned, no good that comes of some meetings or happenings. Things happen sometimes for no reason at all.
I do not pretend to know anything about the harsh realities of life. I will be honest, I have been very lucky and blessed in my life to not have to deal with any of these issues. I do not pretend to know the first thing about rape or what it is like to go through that and my heart truly goes out to those who do. You are far stronger than I will ever be.
XXX
Naruto watched the vodka swirl in his glass, trying to keep from thinking. The smoky atmosphere of the club burned his eyes and he dug his fingers into his sockets to relive some of the pain with little success. Why had he let Jiraiya drag him to this party? The music pounded in a loud unintelligible roar that reverberated deep in his chest as girls moved to the beat and Naruto closed his eyes again before downing his vodka in one shot, wishing the burn was stronger. He should be at home right now. He wanted to be at home right now, curled up in bed with his little boys. Why had he agreed to come?
A flash of cotton-candy pink caught his eye across the room as a new dancer strutted onto the stage before hopping down and beginning to dance in front of a few men. Before he could really think on the wisdom of his choice, he was weaving through the mindless dancers on the floor. He caught her arm and spun her around, blue eyes meeting minty green.
"What can I do for you, Hun?" she asked in a silky voice as she turned before her entire body tensed. "Naruto?"
"Hey, Sakura. Fancy seeing you here?"
"Hey, come on, man, we saw her first!" Naruto turned to the greasy voice behind him. The man was nearly six inches shorter than him and when he turned his hard blue eyes on him, the man quailed under his glare.
"There's plenty of other girls. If you're really so desperate you have to pay for your women you won't be able to handle this one, anyway." He didn't even wait for a reply before he started to walk away, dragging the stripper behind him.
"Hey!" Sakura protested angrily. Her nails tried to dig under his fingers to pry his hand off her arm but he just picked up his pace, dragging her outside as she stumbled along in her sky-high heels. He released her with a light shove, pushing her away from the back door of the club. She spun around to face him, her green eyes lit with a furious light and Naruto took the opportunity to study her.
He hadn't seen her since high school, at least, and he never would have expected to run into her at one of his godfather's perverted raves.
"What the hell is your problem?" she demanded, spitting like a cat with righteous fury.
Naruto regarded her coolly, his hands shoved in his pockets. "Never expected to see you here, Sakura. What are you doing, dancing for cash?" Her body tensed and she glared at him, all of her righteous fury gone as her cheeks colored in humiliation. "Guess a lot's changed since I saw you last."
Her whole body shook for a moment before she bit her lip harshly. She released a shaky breath and then leveled him with a cool look.
"What would you do, if your son was at home, crying all alone on the bedroom floor because he's hungry, and the only way to feed him was to sleep with a man for a little bit of money?" She spoke lowly, expecting her words to cut like razors and tried to hide her anger when Naruto didn't even blink. Naruto could tell she was warming to her element though because her blush faded, her shoulders straightened and that righteous fury began to grow in her eyes again. "His daddy's gone, in and out of lock down. I don't have a job and he's just smoking rock now. This is what you call 'a good time' but this is what I call a life."
"You're not the only one to have a baby." Naruto wasn't looking at her now. He was staring at the wet pavement under his shoes, imagining two angelic little faces smiling up at him before he raised his eyes to her again. "That's no excuse to go living all crazy."
Sakura stared him square in the eye and said, "Every day I wake up hoping to die. I know a bit about pain, my sister and I ran away so our daddy couldn't rape us. Before I was a teenager I dealt with shit you can't even relate to." Her voice carried a new burning fire but Naruto wasn't paying her any more attention, haunted by the echoes of his nightmares in the silence that followed Sakura's words.
"No! Narut,-" The harsh slap of a hand connecting with flesh cut her voice off into quiet sobs.
"Hinata!"
His chest was tight and his voice was flat and gray when he spoke. "What would you do, if your sons were at home, crying all alone on the bedroom floor and their hungry for their mother's arms around them, but you can't help them because she's gone now? Killed by a man while you listen on the phone, unable to move, unable to save her as you listen as he hurts her. This is what you call a life but this is what I call a nightmare.
"You don't see me taking the easy way out. Stop crying like some sorry little victim. Get up off of your feet and stop making tired excuses."
Sakura tried to keep her glare in place, tried to still look angry even as her face paled at Naruto's admission. "You're not the only one who's had to deal with shit, Sakura, and you sure as hell won't be the last. You're still alive and you can do anything you want." He let his words sink in for a moment, trying his hardest to keep his mind from wandering back into those dark memories. He needed to see his boys. "If you see Jiraiya, tell him I went home," he said before turning his back to her and walking away.
XXX
As Naruto slumped in the seat of his car the memories flooded him, despite his best efforts. Sakura's words had dragged them up and now he could not banish them.
A broken scratchy noise came through the phone, as if it was being scrapped over pavement, and Naruto couldn't breathe. His lungs refused to work.
"'Ruto?…"
"Hinata! Where are you?" he gasped. He couldn't even think, his thoughts were hopelessly jumbled and words didn't make sense.
She gasped on the other end of the phone and her voice was breathless. "Naruto, I need you to come get the boys. Bring the o-" her voice broke in a breathy gasping cough before she continued. "You need to… to bring the other key. I locked mine in the car with them so he couldn't get in." If it hadn't been for what he had just heard, if she wasn't gasping for every breath and trying to hide her pained whimpers, he could almost convince himself she was perfectly ok. "I-I'm on the sec-second level of the parking garage at my dad's office. In the North East corner."
He was bolting to his car before she'd even finished. It was a half hour drive to her father's office. He jammed his key into the ignition and tore out of the driveway, flying out of the neighborhood and onto the city streets. "Hinata?"… no reply. "Hinata! Answer me!"
"You…you need to hurry. I can hear J'raiya crying." She sounded tired, like she was about to fall asleep.
"Hinata, Honey, stay awake. Talk to me!" He was halfway to her when lights flashed through the back window as he blazed through a red light, narrowly missing a pickup truck.
"'Er those sirens?" Her voice was quiet and breathy and Naruto's gut twisted violently as he pressed the accelerator harder into the floor.
"Yeah, some lunatic is driving through the streets," he answered vaguely, hoping to keep her awake.
"…'Ruto?" His heart skipped a beat painfully at the sound of her voice. He forced the words past the lump in his throat.
"Yeah? What is it, 'Nata?"
"I love you."
"Hinata!" She didn't answer. "Hinata!" When he again got no answer he threw the phone down, ignoring how it ricocheted off the passenger door. He tore around a corner and screeched into the parking garage, two police cars on his tail as he floored it up the ramp. Her car was parked halfway down the garage and he skidded to a halt, barely throwing the car into park before he was out the door.
"Hinata!" He yelled as he ran around the car and saw a scene that would haunt him for the rest of his life. She lay on the cold pavement, curled up on her side in a dark puddle. A gut-wrenching brownish-red streak led from her body to the far corner of the garage. He fell to his knees and gathered her into his arms, trying to be gentle with her limp body.
She was wearing that white lace dress he loved, but it was more red than white now, with holes all over it that went deeper than just the lace. Her skirt had been cut to ribbons and he could see the bloody cuts on her thighs. Her beautiful long hair had been hacked off close to her scalp in rough patches. On some level he was vaguely aware of the police officers surrounding him, gun barrels aimed at his heart but he didn't care. Hinata Uzumaki, the love of his life, would never be with him again.
What would you do?
XXX
I warned you. I honestly have no idea where this came from. Really! The entire backstory with Hinata just wrote itself and I was shocked with myself when I had finished it.
That being said, what did you think? How much did you hate it? I can't decide if I love or hate this story and I'm curious what others will think of it.
Please leave a review and let me know. If you decide to leave some constructive criticism, I will be overjoyed to read it and learn from my mistakes. If you are going to rip into me for a valid reason, it will be given the same consideration. If you are just going to tell me it is crap, without any reason given you will be ignored.
Now that this is out of your way, I wish you happy reading!
Tenneyshoes