Checkmate
Author: Starapple/Martinique
Rating: PG/T
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.
Warning: Random stuff.
It was going to end the way it always did between them. The time didn't matter. It was the moment, the active, living breathing stillness of the moment that would lead them to the inescapable conclusion.
Naruto could taste it; fate hummed between them.
xxx
Before, it had been a game. Training. Something Kakashi had told them to do, so that Naruto could learn patience. So that Sasuke would learn to cope with surprises.
It became a habit of its own, cool drinks perched on the edge of a table taken by the chessboard.
Pieces, mainly naïve pawns, lined the sides. This had become a habit, but now it was its own entity.
Winner took all.
xxx
When he wanted to, Naruto could strategize. He also played dirty, and if he had been working Sasuke with promising, darkly possessive glances all day that made the other not-quite-blush, it was all just part of the plan. It was merely a matter of time before—
"Checkmate." Sasuke whispered, breaking the silence. His voice was hoarse.
He had learnt patience.
"Good game." He lied agreeably. He hadn't paid any attention to it at all, intent only on the shape of Sasuke's face, the dark hair, and the smell of him as they rocked together. Be it night. Or day.
xxx
Rain lightly batters the window pane. Naruto watches it, seeing the droplets, hearing the patter. But unaware.
Aware though of the sound of two chests rising, breathing. The sight of dark hair cupping the sharp angles of his face. The feeling of a hand, flat on his stomach, a source of heat.
Slumbering in blind trust.
xxx
Sasuke isn't surprised. This was bound to happen, it was just the when, the how that eluded them both. The why – it had always existed between them.
Sasuke isn't surprised when he wins. Or at Naruto's spoken lie. This is a habit and a ritual of theirs. The quietest kind. One that no one could see coming, not even Kakashi who'd suggested the warm-up.
They play throughout the year, with the same ending. The ending that comes before the deep breathing of sleeping bodies.
xxx
Still wrapped up in their thoughts, they kiss, as if they are hesitant and this was new territory.
xxx
The way they behaved towards each other differed. It depended upon the occasion, the tone used.
Here, now, where no one watched them and there was no tone, where there was just the bed, they kissed. Strong arms encircling a chest as bodies rock together slowly, heated gasps flooding the air.
xxx
It's raining outside.
AN: I don't even know what to call this. It was meant to be a 1, 2, 3-smut ficlet involving chess. Then it turned into this semi-angsty thing. Gah.