Title: First Blood
Disclaimer: Copyright laws sure are ineffective on this site, don't you think?
Rating: R ( M ) – For mature themes, but nothing terribly graphic. Just in case, though, take a peek over your shoulder – right now! Do it now! – to make sure that your parents aren't looking (especially if they believe in abstinence education).
Spoilers: Your innocence (oh, wait...too late).

Summary: OneShot. There was no more sex that day, only love making. SasuHina.

I wrote this back in '07. Be nice.

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Diluted swirls of red circled the drain, swept away from the source by the current of shower water. It blended with the city-purified liquid until everything was pink, only to separate again before being sucked down into the pipes; blood, after all, is thicker than water.

Of course, the two bloods that had mingled previously were now inseparable. Tied together by lust, stupidity and regret.

Curled up against the cold, dripping wall, a young woman – physically, if not emotionally – shivered outside the warming influence of the shower's spray. Her ankles were crossed in front of her and her arms, as if atoning for her sins, kept her knees clamped together tight. Her face was hidden in her folded arms and sopping tangle of dark hair, yet her mood was obvious.

She was crying. It was hard to tell, but her shoulders shook more violently than the rest of her body, implying that she was experiencing emotional convulsions within her self-made cocoon. An occasional sob or two could be heard over the water pelting the sides of the shower stall, but her anguish would be mostly inaudible to an unconcerned observer.

Aside from her seizing shoulders, she remained almost perfectly still. Either unwilling or unable to move; perhaps both.

Creeeeeeak...

The young woman jumped at the alien sound that announced intrusion upon her solitude. She didn't raise her head fully, but inclined her ear towards the source of the commotion and remained otherwise motionless.

Moderately heavy footsteps approached and a frosty shadow appeared on the other side of the glass door, cast against the opaque surface like some surreal dream. Remnants of a nightmare, perhaps.

"What's wrong?" the shadow asked, apparently unwilling to force his full company upon the shower's occupant. He had his hand on the door handle all the same.

Burying her face more securely within the folds of her arms, the young woman replied, "N-Nothing. I'm...I'm fine."

"Liar."

"Please. J-Just go," the young woman pleaded in an unusual display of rudeness.

There was a brief hesitation and a rattle of the glass door. "No."

"I w-want to be left al-lone," she insisted, packing her body as tightly into the corner as she could.

Finally, the last obstacle separating them was slid out of the way, revealing a young man of approximately the same age as the girl in the shower. He was completely nude – and very obviously cold – and his scars, bleached in the florescent light of the bathroom, stood out like a gory memory. His obsidian eyes were lowered in a glare at the woman in the bottom of the shower stall, but his bewildered expression suggested an inner turmoil rather than outer.

"I'm sorry," he said after a brief pause.

The girl, perhaps startled by his apology, raised her head away from her knees to look at him. Her eyes were as white as his were black and expressed a similar vexation. "Wh-What?"

The man cast his gaze to the side, far away from the young woman. "I said I was sorry. I know you didn't want..." The young man's expression hardened as he spat the last few words of his sentence out; "I know you expected it to be with someone else."

"Sasuke-san..."

"Hinata," the young man continued, perhaps fearful of losing his momentum. "I won't tell anyone. Naruto – "

Sasuke stopped as a pair of arms tightened around his middle. As he returned his gaze to its original position, he saw Hinata clinging to him, holding tight to keep herself from falling out of the shower stall. Her face was pressed against his abdomen and she turned her nose to nuzzle his bellybutton with something akin to affection.

"It's not that," she said, sealing this promise with a hard squeeze. "I just...I've never..."

Sasuke dropped to his knees, sliding through the loop created by Hinata's arms, and took her face in his hands. He presented her with a relieved kiss that she returned without a moment's hesitation.

"Good," was all he said when they broke apart.

"Um...," Hinata ventured, sheepishly hiding her face in her lover's shoulder. "Th-There's still some warm water left..."

Rightly taking this information as an invitation, Sasuke climbed inside the shower stall with her and closed the door behind him. Not long afterward, the water grew cold but the glass fogged up as if it were still hot.

There was no more sex that day, only love making.

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Authors Notes: Dude, I totally found this story in my files this morning XD It was complete, even! (Save for a bit of self-editing, of course.) Totally forgot about it...according to my computer, the file was last saved on 12/10/07, just after my twenty-first birthday. Go figure.

Anyway, I polished it up a bit, but please be aware that the majority of this was written a couple of years ago. Please give the mistakes a little leeway.

. ( . Ms Videl Son . ) .

– Love can be black and white. SasuHina.