GR's Note: Updates for this story are by no means to be considered 'regular'. My muse struck me for this story while in the middle of muddling through the rest of my stories, and I actually managed to get a chapter done. Enjoy the not so conventional proceedings!
Chapter 2 – Late
In the early hours of the morning, when most people are just waking to streaks of pink and purple sky peeking through their curtains, it's not exactly uncommon for those among the ranks of the village shinobi to already be keen and alert, their finely honed senses having warned them of the onset of daylight some time ago. There are exceptions to every rule however, and one such exception was quite simply not a morning person. Not that far away, suffering from a massive headache and a brutal lack of sleep, another exception to the rule just hadn't gone to bed yet, having become used to her nocturnal lifestyle, and was now anything but sharp and alert. Their respective wake up calls, however, would be delivered by two unnaturally perky shinobi, whether they wanted it or not.
"Dobe."
Whining in protestation both against his old nickname and the abrupt removal of his blankets, Naruto cracked one sleepy blue eye before rolling over on his stomach and burying his face in his pillows, heedless to the fact that he was completely naked. In a rare show of approval, thin lips hidden behind a shock of blue-black hair curled into a devious smirk before nimble and extremely cold fingers roved up the muscular curves of the blond's thighs, snapping him awake as he dove off of the bed to escape the frigid touch.
"What the hell?! Your hands are freezing, bastard!" The smirk only morphed into a feral grin as its owner deftly sidestepped the heavy projectile that had been thrown at him by the grumbling blond sprawled across the messy floor.
"Hn. This whole trip was your idea, I shouldn't have to wake you up." As if a tiny spark had gone off in the younger man's head, his demeanor changed immediately from half awake wrath into desperate panic while he scrambled to his feet, digging among the discarded debris on the floor for any pair of boxers that didn't look like they'd been worn too many times since laundry day and swearing profusely when he couldn't find any.
Unfortunately for Naruto, his dark-haired teammate was a sneaky, vindictive asshole who happened to prefer the blond without any clothes on and still had yet to enact his revenge for the rather childish prank that had been played on him a few days previous. Needless to say, the darker of the two was going to get exactly what he wanted before the blond would find so much as a sock.
"Teme, where'd you put all my damn clothes?!" The raven-haired man didn't incline his head to look up at his blond counterpart's angry glare, having absolutely nothing to be afraid of, instead just stuffing his hands casually into the pockets of his casual white shorts and donning his usual condescending expression.
"Hn. You'd already know that if you acted like a shinobi at all. What kind of ninja sleeps like you do?" The blond only growled at him incoherently and so, purely to taunt him, Sasuke picked up his own blue sweater from where it lay haphazardly on the back of a chair and tossed it at the blond, who sidestepped it and let it fall in a pile onto the empty bed behind him.
"Shut up. Where'd you put 'em?"
"Depends how badly you want to know."
Realization flashed across a narrowing cerulean gaze before arms that seemed pale in comparison to the younger man's crossed over a similarly pale chest and the owner leaned against the wall, smirking once again as he lounged in the satisfaction of the moment. Not quite so willing to admit defeat, Naruto crossed his own arms and flopped down cross legged on the bed, huffing as he refused to meet the already triumphant man's midnight black eyes.
"You're gonna make us late and Sakura-chan n' Kakashi-sensei are gonna leave without us."
"Hn. You could always go as you are. I'm sure Sakura would appreciate the view before she pounds you into the ground for it." The normally tanned skin that underlaid Naruto's 'whiskers' flushed a violent shade of red before the blush extended down over his shoulders and straight down to the seal that decorated his navel.
"She would not, she'd pound you when she heard that it was all your fault!" In a languid, almost lazy show of confidence, Sasuke straightened up and strode the distance to the bed in a mere couple of steps, only to bend down and nearly growl his amused threat into the stubborn blond's ear.
"Damn right it's going to be my fault."
xxxxx
"Fuck. There isn't enough coffee in the world to wake me up in time."
"I'd say. That was a lamp you just put in your bag, Ugly." Groaning from the lingering effects of a hangover rather than her long-time and mostly ignored nickname, Sakura took her bag and upturned it onto the bed, certain that she had been packing clothes. She was proven wrong when out fell her alarm clock, a desk lamp and the loose batteries that had fallen out of it, causing her to growl in pained frustration.
"You know, you could make yourself useful and help, you insensitive ass. I don't come to your place and bother you when you're hungover." The normal faint, but not entirely fake, smile peeked out at her above the sketchpad propped up against the pale shinobi's free arm as he put ink to paper, sketching the subject that was currently moving him; An irate, half-dressed, pink-haired kunoichi who was probably not coherent enough to realize that she wasn't wearing any pants.
"You probably would, if the urge to drink myself into an incoherent stupor ever struck me. For now though, you can simply praise my foresight to come over and help you. That was your clock again." Deftly he dodged the small plastic clock as it found its way back out of the bag and into the airspace to the left of his ear, courtesy of Sakura's mean throwing arm. Surprisingly, although she couldn't distinguish what it was she was throwing, she seemed to have little trouble with her aim.
"You aren't helping! Fuck, where did that shirt go? I really liked that one, that bitch better not have stolen it..." Quick, fluid strokes caught his vantage point on paper as the pink-haired woman immersed herself in a cluttered closet, rummaging through what appeared to be naught but a sea of red, white and tan.
"You mean that white shirt you folded up and put on your bed already?" Dodging the next deadly implement that the frustrated woman decided to launch at his head, Sai began roughly sketching the muscle formations making up the back of her thighs, particularly fascinated by her body when it was in motion, of which there was no shortage while she was running back and forth upturning her bedroom in an effort to sort out her belongings from her former roommate's while simultaneously trying to fill her bag with clothes— Or at least objects similar enough that she couldn't tell the difference, such as a textbook, a pillowcase and the flea collar she had forgotten to replace on her cat three weeks ago.
As amusing as her hungover antics were, being a strange contradiction to her normal behavior, Sai began to eventually feel that enough was enough— Possibly a result of years' worth of his companions' examples on compassion and helpfulness, though there were more than enough times when he felt that the amusement was more than worth ignoring the urge to help. Now though, he felt pressed to shift his perch from the open window to the bed beside her bag, at which point he began removing anything he wouldn't personally pack for a trip such as the one she was going on... The sheer scrap of purple fabric that he was sure her friend and rival used to wear as a skirt being one of those items.
"Ah...are you helping, or are you just being more of a pain in the ass?"
"I don't believe I've been a pain in your ass for several months now, Ugly, although I seem to recall that you enjoyed it when I was." Once again the heavy object launched at him didn't quite connect, although the bright tomato red her face had turned as she came at him pushing up her sleeves seemed to indicate that he'd made a grievous error in mentioning their discontinued interactions that had ended some time ago. The fist he leapt off the bed to avoid and left to crash into the void between the wall and mattress only furthered this grim assessment of his own actions while he watched the injured and disoriented woman try to lift herself up from the awkward position in which she'd fallen.
"I told you not to bring it up again, and I did not enjoy it!" Another ill-aimed flying leap at his nimble frame was side-stepped before the increasingly irritated woman found herself pinned up against the wall so hard she couldn't turn her head, both hands held tightly behind her back and pressed against her by a frame quite a bit broader and heavier than her own. A loud, protesting squeak erupted from her throat without permission when warm breath ruffled the wispy hairs that lay loose beneath her ear and sharp teeth nipped the delicate lobe with a familiarity that he wasn't supposed to have permission to exercise anymore.
"... And here I was under the impression that yelling was the usual method for you to communicate displeasure. I seem to have been grossly misinformed, since you were moaning my name awfully loudly for someone who wasn't enjoying herself." A short gasp followed the soft descent of his thin lips from her ear to the curve of her bare shoulder, where the practiced timbre of his voice meant to incite her passions ended with his words and the smirk he spoke them with.
"S-stop it, this isn't the time! Ah..." A hard nip to her shoulder shut her up instantly as pale hands roved up her legs and under the loose shirt she'd donned to replace the skintight travesty her best friend had forced her to wear the previous evening. Hands still bound and immobile alerted her to the fact that he was intent on keeping her incapable of productive struggle— It was his special method of artwork, most likely quick doodles of snakes or rope that kept her wrists tied and her hands completely useless. She couldn't even force it off with her own favored form of chakra manipulation, a stratagem that she immediately considered and then rejected— She was too hungover, she could barely see straight and her head was pounding hard enough for her to hear her own pulse without difficulty.
"There's always time to consult with my muse." An embarrassed and heady flush descended from the root of every strand of uniquely rosette hair right down to the collar of the enormously oversized shirt she was all but swimming in, enveloping the visible tops of her small breasts in a rosy red color that combined with the unique shape they made pressed against the wall to create a sight that would inspire him to attempt a perfect recreation of it on paper at some later time. No two dimensional medium would ever sufficiently capture the intensity of the warmth of her skin under his fingers, or the delicate seam between flesh and the thin cotton that served to cover it, or even the appreciative and defeated hiss that she expressed as he bit into the muscled flesh at the base of her neck— It was a sad fact that he had learned after their first encounter of such a nature and had been an important instigator for his newer and less objective appreciation for 'art'.
"...I told you we couldn't do this anymore." It was her last, false attempt at trying to push him away and he recognized it for just that, slipping long fingers skilled in more than just the medium of ink under the edge of her deliciously modest panties to trace the points he could picture in his mind easily simply from touch as he savored the slow path to the destination she was silently begging him to take one more time— The last time, he was sure.
"There's no replacement for a truly inspirational muse." Another, heavier blush tainted her pale skin as her breathing grew quicker and more shallow in tandem with his willingness to indulge the strangest and most nonsensical of her pleasures— He had never quite understood what it was about being bitten that caused her to so easily fall victim to his artistic whimsy, but it was always with his teeth embedded in her skin that she achieved the height of her beauty and the wholly unique contortions that her face and body fell into decorated scores of his scrolls and notebooks in imitations of their momentary fleeting glory.
"...If you make me late... I s-swear... I'll cut off your balls with the rustiest scalpel I can find and shove them down your throat." A thin thread of scarlet fell from her shoulder and began to pool in the crevice created by her compressed cleavage as a loud and unhampered moan cascaded from her lips, reddened by the moment while jade eyes glassed over in the lusty haze he had grown accustomed to seeing and indeed, quite fond of. Thin fingers tipped in short, trim nails clenched and curled as she fought her bonds again and soft, whimpered sounds of pleasure began to escape from her unimpeded as his own short nails found purchase in the flesh just above the tiny patch of coarse curls he knew by memory to be as vivid in color as the fine locks upon her head.
"I could leave, if you wish. I've been told it's quite offensive to engage in this sort of behavior without mutual consent." Explorative fingers traversed the short curls and the dampness covering them as he traveled farther with reverence, imagining how each hair could be laid out onto paper to create an image worthy of the moment he'd touch her and she'd start shaking, helpless to the curiosity that was lust.
Gasped out words, broken and nearly inarticulate, enraptured him with the delicately submissive being that emerged from a dominating and so often physically distanced woman, even as she exerted traits of her natural self within the threat.
"Do so and I'll nail 'em to the fucking wall."
