Title: Knothole
Description: [And I am merely the thimble, protecting your precious being from the harsh piercings of this world.
Pairings: Numerous
Rating: M
Warnings: Potential manga spoilers
Disclaimer: No ownage, so no sue-age.
A/N: This is a little project I did when I started to read some stories that had "themes". This piece contains some mature content so please be aware. First chapter couples include: NaruHina, KakaSaku, AsuKure, SuiKa, JiraTsu.
- - -
I will hold you tight
So you know
- - -
.Glass.
With opal eyes refusing to shut, she watches helplessly as blood continues to cover her hands in malevolent bursts of color – so bright against her alabaster flesh. Her mouth refuses to utter words when those azure irises find her own despite the world continuing to spin erratically off its axis, creating blurs between sky and earth. Her breath gets stuck in her throat and there it stays and burns. She doesn't notice that her hands are still buried within mutilated tissue and organs, still latent from her previous attempts to place his broken shards back together.
He can merely gurgle out incoherent grunts that used to be words, scarlet painting itself across his lips where it then continues onward to dribble down his chin. In this looming state of urgency, he cannot help but to try and apologize for staining her beautiful skin with his innards.
She needs to call for back up. The radio transmitter is buzzing gargles of static, reminding her of its presence. But she cannot let her eyes leave his that are still so alert and blue, despite the fact that her hands are buried deep within his abdomen. He is staring at her like it is any other day, like the red smearing his lips is barbeque sauce and the tremor in her heart is from his hand brushing her own.
Hinata lets him pretend and she wishes she had that good of an imagination (or denial complex). Her chakra is still pouring into him, attempting to mend all that is broken and all that has shattered. She is trying both to save his life and the world (because both are so tightly intertwined).
And in this moment, where her transmitter is out of range, where the exploding tag was meant for her and where her chakra and will power aren't enough – Hinata finally confesses.
"L-love.."
But words had never been her forte.
.Bubbles.
Sakura was tempted to childishly growl as a pale hand grabbed hold of her wrist, stopping her from lifting the enticing glass of champagne to her plush lips. Swivelling her emerald eyes ever-so-slightly to the left, she was compelled to grimace at her silver-haired intruder.
"Get your paws off my drink."
Kakashi smiled at her, the slight way his viewable eye twinkling with mirth a telltale sign. He squeezed her appendage slightly as he admonished teasingly, "Maa, Sakura. I'm not touching your drink."
Sakura rolled her eyes and snatched her wrist away from his fairly loose grip. Taking a sip, enjoying the fizzing concoction sliding down her throat, the coral-haired kunoichi murmured stubbornly, "It's still preventing me from drowning my sorrows."
Kakashi snorted with amusement as he tried to ignore the elaborate centerpiece - comprised of numerous lilies and lilac in all different arrays of color - sitting five centimeters away from his face. He would agree with his former student that the ambience was a tad overdone, if not outlandishly so.
Shrugging, he pushed a plate compiled with every kind of beef assortment available towards her, "Might as well devour the complementaries, ne?"
Huffing, Sakura pushed the plate back, even though those little pigs-in-a-blanket looked delectable, "You're not stopping me from getting drunk."
Kakashi raised his eye to the heavens as Sakura tried to down the sophisticated-appearing glass discreetly before he could whip out a hand to stop her. Setting the empty glass on the fine linen tablecloth, Sakura sighed as she placed her head in her hand, elbow grinding into the table.
"To the bigoted couple."
Kakashi almost pursed his lips at the bitterness that soured the air between them. He couldn't blame her though. Most of the obnoxious sculptures of ice depicting dolphins, hearts and cupids were for "rubbing-in-Sakura's-face" purposes only and Ino was doing a fine job of relaying just that. Their seating arrangements weren't a fluke either: sitting directly across the happy couple from the other side of the room where Sakura could catch every kiss sent Sasuke's way. He could see the medic-nin narrow her eyes at the blonde even now, as Ino leaned into the Uchiha for a big smooch.
The inhumane amounts of competing estrogen pumping through the air was enough to suffocate him.
Sakura's spat of disgust reverberated from his right. "Ugh! She's such a pig. Doesn't she just look like a fat hog in that horrific dress? Jesus, all those sequins are burning my fucking corneas!"
Kakashi tried not to laugh at Sakura's childishly venom-laced words. She still saw the tremor wrack his frame which only caused her to hunch even more into her hand and sigh melodramatically (alcohol starting to buzz through her veins), "I'm gonna end up an old maid while she's popping out babies left and right. Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll live in my attic when you're all wrinkly and liver-spotted so I'm not all by my lonesome..."
The copy-nin wrinkled his nose at the depressing image. Deciding to let the comment slide (she was having an "early-twenties crises" after all), he quipped indifferently, "Don't forget all those cats."
Sakura groaned and reached for the bottle of champagne, but before she could even register any movement from her left, a hand grasped her wrist. She paused and stared at his hand that encased her seemingly delicate bones. Sakura found his grey eye with her own jade and stared at him questionably. His expression was soft and gentle as was his grip. She could break away at any moment, but she let him hold her despite the fact. The kunoichi could feel all the callouses from war-torn years upon his palm and decided she liked the feel of its ruggedness atop her own smooth skin.
Sakura watched hypnotically as his lips began to move beneath his mask, signaling he took a breath, beginning to speak.
"Just promise me you won't drink to love tonight, Sakura."
Sakura let an airy laugh escape her mouth as she removed his hand from her wrist and grabbed hold of the bottle. She helped herself to another glass and then filled the one beside him as well.
As she poured the bubbling, golden liquid, Sakura smirked, "One drink doesn't make you fall in love, Kakashi."
And then she looked him square in the eye.
"But maybe two can."
.Citrus.
Kurenai slid her fingers into his thick, black hair and tried to deny the fact that he was about to cross the threshold into uncertainty. His beard was itchy and scratchy against her smooth contours and it made her smile as her lips pressed hard against his. Kurenai let him pull her close, tightly as if she were about to fade with the wind, and he let her claw her nails into his scalp like their days were numbered.
Both feigned to be ignorant of the fact that they were.
Asuma's big, warm hands were cradling her face, she realized, as he pulled her lips from his. He wanted to look into her ruby irises and see life gazing unto him. Kurenai felt her plush lips still parted and he was looking at her like he wanted to say something profound, epic and brave – like a soldier leaving his barren wife to fight in a war whose origin was unplaced, just like in the romance novels splayed on her night stand. Before either of them knew it, the raven-haired kunoichi filled the blanks for him.
"Fruity."
Asuma's eyes widened and he tried to hold in his bark of disbelieving laughter. "What? I'm sorry, sweetheart, I didn't quite catch that."
Kurenai found her cheeks stained red from her whispered coo. So wrapped up in the moment, she hadn't took the time to think of what the phrase may allude to. Quickly, she tried to mend the collateral damage.
"No, no! I mean, your kiss. It tasted like..."
Asuma raised an eyebrow as a teasing smile set upon his lips, and decided to help out his flustered lover, "Like fruits?"
And it did. Not cold and harsh like ashes that she had come accustomed to (after all, smoke played a big part in his life) and not the cigar-like twang she had come to love. Maybe it was because he was leaving off into the unknown and the stakes were high. Perhaps it was a sign, a card fate had handed them, a cryptic clue of what was to come...
Asuma shrugged, still beaming, "Well, I did have an orange for breakfast."
Kurenai rolled her eyes. Or maybe it was just vitamin C.
.Chivalry.
It was hot. Unbearably hot. The sun was still reverberating despite the cool moon's glow and the heat still stuck to her every curve like dripping molasses. Sweat glistening in muted tones of navy and silver, he was desperate to lick every bead to moisten his parched tongue. Her nails were clawing into his back and damn, it was way too hot to do this.
"Fucking lazy ass. For a fish you sure have slow swimmers..."
He growled, pointed teeth gnashing together and fingers tangling themselves in strawberry tresses, knotting every root painfully tight so he could hear her gasp and feel her squirm helplessly, as he thrust harder and harder.
His green eyes simmered with lust as he spat out, "This isn't for your benefit." Another thrust and yowl. "This is me being unsatiated for over half a year and you being the only available pussy around for miles." He smirked ruefully even though his eyes spoke with slight discrepancy. Hair plastered slick with sweat against his forehead, Suigetsu let a shiver roll down his spine when Karin spoke venomously into his ear, hot breaths fanning his neck with each syllable.
"And you're just compensation."
Her nails raked across his skin and he had half a mind not to flinch as he felt his sweat mix with newly created rivulets of crimson. The Mist-nin smashed his mouth onto hers hard and their kiss was reduced to merely teeth clashing and lips bruising. It hurt, feeling good and wonderful at the same time it felt horrible and restless. Suigetsu let the chakra-detecting kunoichi wrap her toned legs around his torso, letting her strangle him and maybe even kill him. He smiled manically as he tugged at her bottom lip until he could taste its metallic beauty.
Karin reached up and fisted a handful of his ivory hair, desperate to hold onto some leverage as she felt herself become wound tighter and tighter. It wasn't what she wanted and the strawberry-headed ninja failed to reproduce the image of her coal-eyed beau in front of those burning emeralds that were filled with hate and love and fire. Karin gasped as he buried his head into the crook of her neck, nipping harshly at her tender flesh, and she could feel him smirk at her shudder.
"I love it when you talk dirty to me, Karin-chan."
Suigetsu's nose was now almost touching hers, foreheads almost knocking together, and Karin refused to be swallowed by those jade abysses, "You're a quick fuck. That's all you'll ever be, fucking bastard."
He laughed bitterly as he leaned in further, foreheads now locked together and his breath mingling with hers.
"So what if I am? All this means is that your pretty little Sasuke-kun told you 'no'."
She kissed him roughly – more biting than actual tongue involved.
Her next argument may have been more persuasive if she hadn't been panting quick breaths or hadn't mewled softly when Suigetsu clamped a hand around one of her ripened buds.
"Mediocre fuck."
Suigetsu snorted with amusement and tightened his grip upon her swollen breast.
"And unlike Sasuke, I'm a gentleman – "
Karin threw her head back, exposing her delicate throat for the enemy to slice and paint red.
"– And never leave my damsels in distress."
.Flutter.
He'd never get used to the feeling of her honey locks twirled around his calloused fingers. The toad sannin didn't mind how it was matted with rusted blood or knotted viciously from running against the wind. He paid no heed to how the once vibrant tresses were lackluster with jagged, broken ends. He merely kept running his fingers through each strand, memorizing its soft contours despite the pungence of this world.
As they lay there, strewn across the ground like the leaves beneath their cold bodies, he felt strangely empty; his contents had been poured out into the river to be washed away and melded back into mother earth once more. Maybe it was the blood that still marred her succulent flesh or the way her eyes, usually so sharp and enticing; caramel, were dull abysses that watched a world from afar that he was not allowed to see. Her skin was so cold, almost lifeless, and he was close to plunging a kunai deep within his chest, just to let his blood envelope her with its warmth. He grimaced at the raw imagery. His thoughts were mauled, he knew, from the virulence of snake eyes and stinging betrayal that was still too fresh.
Her lips were purple and trembling with every breath. She was still shaking and whispered softly the lost name of her lover.
"Dan."
He let his listless eyes find her vacant ones. He would let her pretend because her eyes were still glossy from faded memories and he knew that his white hair was just so strikingly similar. She took a quivering breath.
"I'm cold."
Then let me warm you with my false hope, love.
It wasn't him she was speaking to, pleading to. It wasn't him and he knew it. Her caramel irises were half-lidded with delirium and perhaps she knew this as well. But Jiraiya was sure this falsehood tasted just so sweet for her.
So, he took her in his arms.
Tsunade clutched to him tight like the ghost she thought he was.
And Jiraiya seized her tightly against his chest like the love he wished she would be.
- - -
A/N: I decided that I'm going to do a total of fifteen couples – five couples to each chapter. It's so much fun making little drabbles like this that I couldn't resist the temptation of writing more. It's also a nice challenge to do different relationships, mainly the ones that I have never done before (in this chapter alone, the only couple I did previously was KakaSaku).
Laymen's explanation for Flutter drabble:
I got e-mailed some questions about this one so here's the facts: I mainly wrote it as a scene right after Orochimaru first betrays them. Tsunade's covered in blood and her phobia sends her mind back to the days of "Dan". Everything else should be self-explanatory. (FYI the drabble titles sort of allude to the contents.)
Soundtrack whilst writing:
Glass: Never Too Late - Hinder
Bubbles: Hot - Avril Lavigne
Citrus: Cherry Lips - Garbage (yeah I know, weird song for the topic)
Chivalry: Worth Dying For - Rise Against
Flutter: Do It Over - Amelie and Someone Turning - Arctic
I want the reviewers/readers to have some part in this project. Review with the couple(s) you wish me to write next chapter and I'll try to do my best to capture them (remember, I can only pick five so don't get huffy if yours didn't get selected). You can say any couple except for the ones I already did. Any couple at all. Crack or cannon. If you have a theme preference or genre, suggest it and I'll see what I can do.
Until next installment,
- - H. 92