A/N: This is certainly one of the most ambiguous and paradoxically planned out stories I've ever written (and one of the few I've ever published) and I won't pretend this will make much sense until the moment of it's conclusion. Information on the situation is slowly revealed as the story goes, though still I'd like to push that a.) I gave up reading the latest of the Naruto manga chapters recently, b.) this story is set post the manga anyway-even if it never ends... and c.)just for back up, it's slightly AU. Even so, I hope people who love mysteries, angst, romance, and solving puzzles will enjoy it and not find the twists too easily discernible, or clues too difficult to pick up on. Any and all feedback is desired and welcome :)
And The Fingers Linger Here
{Cannibalism in the form of secondhand inheritance.}
Chapter one: Present
Of the letters she sent Naruto over the last weeks in Suna, Sakura remembers most one she wrote with the intention of a confession. She remembers it most- with steely shame and tenderness alike, same as she cradles incoming mail in her hands- because she can remember writing that she felt lied to( What a ridiculous sentiment on her part, an atrocious accusation).
It 's ironic it's the one letter Naruto never sent a reply for.
In the time of her return she inquires as they have breakfast in their quarters, sunshine wafting it's way through the windows and onto the corners of the green painted wood of the table. Naruto's servants bring in eggs, warm and liquid in appearance. They have toast- because they've never been traditional. Hands in the lengthy strands of her bed hair, she asks him cautiously why he never penned a reply. She is careful- she does not mention the contents of the letter.
He contemplates a forkful of food and watches her funny, brows knitted half way low, one up high, corners of his mouth pulled crooked. It hits him a great insult she'd believe he'd ignore any of her letters.
" I always wrote back,"
She smiles, laughs, and her hands come out of her hair. " I know."
She realizes he never got the letter.
{x}
Sakura cannot describe the release she feels when she arrives, drenched and numb at the door of Naruto's office in the folds of a storm. She can, but will not describe the unintentional, but not unexpected little bits of panic that flit through her system when Shikamaru first opens the door for her, shifting the weight from one shoulder heavy with her things, onto his broad back, only to hesitate halfway and remember the room is empty. Her hands close tightly over air for several seconds, homesick and clutching for a life line. They have come so far just that day, and the muscles at the base of her neck have long tensed; her legs ache to run a good mile- and then buckle into a bed. The heat in the desert they crossed was unbearable, but the chill of the rain now is painful like a drill to the marrow of her bones. A little seed of horror lays buried in the back of her mind, and it frets over flesh matters, wonders if she is still blood and skin, and the cold hasn't turned her to stone or porcelain.
" Meeting, Meeting," Shikamaru sighs and steers her away from the door. Sakura notes the beginnings of a scruffy beard on his chin, and familiar dark, tender circles below his eyes that probably mirror her own. The hand he levels at the back of her neck feels heavy and foreign, a wary force. She is tired now- they both are, and that's why she's willing to admit that even as she has outranked Shikamaru Nara long ago, both in the eyes of the village and by Naruto's side, he continues to feed and collect a feeling of authority. Behind those flat brown eyes math is happening, politics are getting tried like the paper work she and Naruto will argue over in his office when things are the way they're supposed to be. As they walk Sakura makes sure to lift her chin high, and quicken her pace enough to stop him from touching her. She feels like a prisoner. She frowns at him- she tries to make it humorous: "You're hands are cold,"
(Technically, his hands are cold. Except she's just as cold, so really, truly, she can't physically feel shit.)
He shrugs. Sakura is smart enough for him to get along with fine- they've been friends the most part of their lives. When she was younger she'd have enjoyed his company better. Six months ago she'd have enjoyed his company better. Now they're both cold, wet, grimy, and sun burnt all at the same time, and Sakura's trying not to think about it, but she's in a different place than she'd always thought she'd be.
There is a meeting taking place in the round room a hallway across, and as they near the sound of Naruto's voice( he never really grew out of the scratchy tones, but now that he's older it's more of a husk) bounds into the hallway. A lone masked guard stands outside the closed door. He's no one she knows- newly recruited into ANBU ranks in her absence perhaps. As they approach he turns his porcelain masked face their way, stance steady. Sakura takes a shaky breath of anticipation. Her arms are stiff with cold and the soaked scrolls she's carried halfway into the village have begun to fall apart and stick to her skin. Leaky ink drips onto the floor. Inside muffled voices argue back and forth in aggressive crackled tones as only those of the aging and wrinkled can. She thinks she hears Naruto laugh. She hopes she does. Naruto is at once ten times easier to move through when he is happy or amused. She can smell the grey smell of antique and dust-it's particularly pungent in the coolness of the air.
" There's a meeting in progress, miss," The guard speaks in reply to her inclination toward the door. It is not until Shikamaru comes into view and the guard realizes who he is that he moves aside . He does not recognize Sakura. She wonders what the name Sakura Haruno means to new ears. Eyeing the guard she proceeds to turn the knob of the door slowly, but stately, bothering to offer the pretense of giving a damn what the hell is going on at the other side. Shikamaru gives her room.
"-suspicious-"
"No motive…"
"Impossible,"
"BIASED!"
"He's been fucking her-"
"How dare you-"
She finds out what Haruno Sakura means to new ears- and old ones.
"She's here."
The door creaks open, and the bickering comes to a stop. Sakura digests the last of what she's heard, and imagines grimly what it is she must look like- discolored and numb in the face, burnt and scabbing everywhere else. Her hair is wet and stuck against her skull, stringy against her shoulders. Wet sand and mud alike stick to her clothes and shoes. Behind her she imagines Shikamaru's uncomfortable expression, the vague horror at the corner of his mouth as he realizes they should have waited. What a drag, she wishes she could say. Tease him. Instead she lets her eyes roam the room, let's them gawk at her before she sets a solid foot in the room. When she catches sight of Naruto, she feels an alien warmth ignite in her chest. A plan unrolls inside the planes of her mind, and on the outside, she fathoms her eyes might be glowing green- which is good. Glowing equals healthy, because no one's seen the things gone wrong in labs.
"Sakura-chan,"
Naruto looks the least like he'd been able to laugh any time within the same hour, and she realizes she must have been hallucinating. The color in his face is pale, and his expression is a knotted one of frustration slowly morphing into one of surprise, then liquid guilt. The affection comes tied with his frowns and the furrowing of his brow. Rainy days are not for Naruto. They are not for him. She reckons she can make this better- she can make things feel right, warm, dizzy and hopeful like the summers they where thirteen. No. Better, even. She just needs a bit of alcohol. He just needs a distraction.
" Hokage-Sama," Its not to do with her plan, but she makes sure she forgets to smile as their eyes meet, and keeps her head high even as she bows towards the council members. The elders who spit newfound venom at her name huff offended- the younger seem hurt. This is honestly not what she'd wanted. She'd come for warmth, and a home to come back to but she'd be a fool to think it'd be that way after everything was over. She is not a fool. She lets the eyes here search her for signs of despair but stands tall, insulted. She has done nothing worth their spite, her stance will tell them- except trust those who will not return the favor.
"…Meeting adjourned." Naruto's command is choked somewhere in his throat. Silence. Her hands twitch in their wet gloves. It takes a second time and a hard glare to get people moving out the door. Shikamaru stands near nailed to the threshold, an arm out the room to gesture into the hallways.
" Good afternoon," he greets the crowd in great monotone, eyes flickering between Naruto and Sakura. As the last person shuffles wearily through the door, he closes it with emphasis, a thud in a room otherwise devoid of noise. Sakura stands near him, pale beside her damaged, burnt skin. Shikamaru fathoms she wears the look of a blue- bloated drowned corpse, her hair flat and thin looking-tangled. Her spine stands so straight facing Naruto; rigid like muscles just into rigor mortis.
He can't see her face from where he stands. He expects livid green eyes. The face she is making, whatever it is, seems enough to make Naruto's face drop defensively- shamefully. He has seen her scold him before- it's a lifestyle; no options, but this time she doesn't lift a fist to his face. Her shoulders twitch here and there- shivering. She does not speak, and the air in the room seems to have stopped circulating- gone stagnant.
He watches- deliberates. Does the math thing. He doesn't expect her to make a bee line for the warmth of Naruto's surprised arms. Her own arms full of damaged scrolls leaves inky trails of melting ice across the floor. When their bodies collide the scrolls fall torn onto the antique carpet beneath their feet.
Breathe, breathe- she breathes in his scent, the smell of home and smooth live things; trees and leaves and forests. Shikamaru does not know her.
The heat of him meets her immediately even through the cloth of his robes; for what is Naruto if not the eternal heat of her world? She is tired, different than she's ever been, and though paranoid, she discards the watchful eyes of herescort. she sinks to find shelter. She dares not feel the wave of intrusion. Naruto feels the eyes run races over them both, imploring and awaiting decisions. She can feel the tightening in his chest already.
" I'm sorry," There is a rumbling beneath the hot skin of his throat as he speaks past the wet mess of her hair. Sakura buries deeper, eyes closed, and feels his breath constrict at the strength of her embrace. 1, 2, 3, she counts. She lets go.
When her eyes have opened again they meet four inquiring others. Shikamaru watches them both from across the room, her pack still slung across his shoulder. Naruto's hands grip her forearms, a slack cross between a smile and a frown fighting for room on his face. Her lips (she licks them and notes they are as ragged as they've been in the last six months) twitch for a makeshift smile. Several seconds of tangled silence later, Naruto still settles for a tight lipped expression, his blue eyes growing hard. Sakura does not miss the darting of his eyes to the document she knows sits among the things at his desk. She can almost see it, she thinks, redly stamped with the familiar seal of the Kazekage. She wishes she could see the sake.
Naruto's hard thumbs trace circles over the cold flesh of her bared arms. The temperature away from his body is unbearably cold. This is not what she wanted. Home needs to be warm.
" Are you okay?"
The smile fades, but a warmth can be found again. Her joints are stiff from the cold journey outside but steadily she reaches for the skin of his cheeks, and rejoices in the feel of both their skin: calloused but human. She releases sighs of relief. Things can't be different, because they've been doing these things their whole lives, or at least the parts that matter.
" Did you get any stupider?" Even this tired the words are familiar in her mouth, and she's almost surprised real anger spills with them. She feels the wetness cling to her neck through her hair and shivers, then thinks: She wants to hit him for ever having her sent away. But the thing is, Naruto needs a face, because masks- masks are not for him, his pretty blue eyes. She can understand this even now. He is warm, and he's really all she's got this time- just like when they first started, all grown up. If she hits him bones will break. She mustn't break what's left of them.
Naruto makes a face, hurt, equally agitated, but his eyes soften; jelly like, like water.
The sound of her pack landing carelessly on the hard wood floor near the door and a sharp sigh from Shikamaru signal he is done for the day. They turn to see the tips of his fingers out in a lazy wave before the door closes behind him. In the hall, he trudges frowning.
Sakura's eyes do linger a second longer, because she is thankful he'd come to fetch her and not left her alone with Naruto's gaurds, waiting chin high, with a thousand untrusting eyes at her back. Thankful he'd come to be steely at a foreign trial and save a fragile balance from collapsing. But a shimmer in his hazy brown eyes doesn't do well with her either. The trip back was awkward. Shikamaru is not stupid, and the worst part is he's sure she's not either. She remembers he has contacts the same she remembers writing letters to Naruto and meeting Temari halfway into the falconry. He only doesn't ask, she realizes, because he'll be too careful to.
" Are you okay?"
Lets try that smile again, then?
"Yeah," she's good at making it sound obvious, making him sound stupid. Yeah, she smiles, and it hurts the corners of her eyes though her lips don't crack and bleed this time around. She breathes, and there's energy running somewhere, and she needs to get where it wants. She breathes inside, outside, and their fingers twine. Her lips find the corner of his jaw. Well enough. She thinks of the sweet liquid waiting to burn it's way into them both; it's no fun being drunk alone.
This in mind, she laughs when he murmurs sorry, and sounds both horrified and angry at what he's let happen. She laughs. He looks like he might cry.
When their lips touch she's glad Shikamaru is gone, and she presses hard against Naruto's mouth, feels her coldness take a little bit of his warmness. His kisses are gentle, friendly, but she's waiting out for the force of the arms around her to push her down hard. Remembering his expression of concern she knows it might take long- hours. He's stupid for wanting to cry. She needs to show him she's fine. When they part for air she'll smile again, and she will seem un-phased, and the world will be good, and she will be good in it's best sense, and she will dig for the sake hidden somewhere in Naruto's desk drawers( some traditions will never die, she can remember Tsunade say).
She will span this days if she can, and they will fornicate like rabbits, drink and sleep like desperados. When she wakes in the morning they will be warm and fleshy, and too hung over to recall any dreams. It'll be a blur.
{x}
Naruto will think on it later, when they sit in his office signing papers on her days off and sharing coffee like they had a thousand times before. She'll smile and it will be just a little bit off when she leans over to give him his stern good morning kiss, and her pink hair- longer than it's ever been- tickles the sides of his face. He wonders what this is because they're not lovers, and he tries not to wonder why they stay locked in the first week, sleep deprived and happy, red eyed, and dizzy with heat, pointing at pigeons perched on rooftops through the glass wall in his office. But then someone walks in, and they've been up to it again, so they enjoy some furious scolding on behalf of the elders, before they hurry home into bed, rustled and harboring makeshift desire for each other. He does not suspect.