Forced pregnancies are always fun to write about. (throws sparkles)
Before she realized what was happening, his hand had reached out. Cold fingers had settled on the flesh of her breast, making her skin prickle and her breath cut off.
Slowly it traveled down, gliding. It was like a spider in that she was afraid it had an agenda, one that could cause harm. She could only remain still, praying for it to leave her quickly.
The hand slid off and dragged across the plump cheek of the boy before trailing through the hair of his son, lingering there, pausing.
Sakura said not a word, afraid of provoking him during this vulnerable moment between mother and child.
"How does it feel, I wonder..."
His muttering was unclear-rhetorical or something that she should answer? She chose to remain silent.
"How long does this take?"
She shifted, the hand honestly forgotten as she considered. Her head tilted slightly as she looked off into a corner. "10 minutes, maybe? I don't have a pacifier on hand so I sometimes just let him suckle." Sakura gave him a look as she said this. "For comfort."
"Comfort?"
"The baby feels pleasure when it has something to suck on. We've been designed for this so-so that we'd immediately equate food with pleasure and continue to nurse."
"I see..."
The baby's hand flew out at that moment, waving, trying to find purchase.
Despite herself, Sakura let out a soft giggle. "Put your finger against his hand."
Sasori leaned near her face, and she saw his suspicious look. "Why?"
"Just do it," she whispered, "before he closes it."
With a hum that intoned skepticism, Sasori lifted the hand on his son's head and slowly-without a fidget, without a twitch-moved towards the tiny palm that was open to the air.
As soon as the pad of his index finger hit that palm, it was clenched in a grip of teeny-tiny fingers. The suction to her breast was interrupted to her surprise. The baby turned his head to bring the caught finger to his mouth; eyes still tightly closed, his tongue poked out to lave softly at his father's digit, seeking sustenance.
"I do not have milk for you." He told his son flatly. Sakura could just imagine his unimpressed stare and let out a snort.
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing."
Sakura sighed and gripped her breast, stroking the boy's turned-away cheek with her nipple. Eventually she coaxed the infant to return to feeding from her, releasing Sasori's finger from his grip in the process, and she leaned back in her chair to close her eyes.
As long as he didn't aggravate her, Sasori could stay. Something was preventing her from flat-out denying him from seeing his own child. Something other than the fact that he had threatened to dash his little brains against the ceiling.
Perhaps it was ... pity? Pity that his genuine fascination seemed to have come from a place that lacked a development in such fundamental...human intimacy. She had seen babies breastfeed as a kid, it wasn't something alien to her. Sometimes she had helped out in the maternity ward and one time she was taught by Tsunade-on a whim-as to the proper procedure to clear a woman's blocked milk ducts. The new mother had been so grateful for the treatment since she had been worried she'd have to wean her baby early.
No, she'd breastfeed this little one until she felt like weaning, not because of outside pressures.
A hand-it could only be his hand-moved against her cheek to brush away her sidelocks. Sakura stiffened at the sensation and opened her eyes to look at him warily. It was so unlike him to touch her. He had not been one to caress that night when he impregnated her. It had been a wholly mechanical affair, one that she had not been complicit in, naturally.
"Your expression when he feeds..I am curious, why do you look so content?"
Sakura blinked and turned her head to avoid his stare.
"It feels good." she muttered.
"How?"
"It's impossible to explain to someone who is not a woman, let alone a human being." she muttered scathingly. Her eyes widened at her insolence and she scooted farther down the bed and cradled the child to her breast even closer.
She took a breath before tumbling out her next sentence. "I'm sorry for how that came out but my point still stands."
The baby had finished feeding and yawned before pursing plush lips and nuzzling her chest. Sakura stroked his velvety hair and leaned in to kiss his forehead.
For a second she forgot the dangerous individual in the room and most importantly, forgot that he hated to be ignored. Sakura turned to the baby's father to find him raptly enamored with the baby's brow she had just kissed.
"Do you kiss him often?"
Her lips parted, closed. Opened once more to let out a "yes".
"Do you love him?"
What was with these questions. Was this his attempt to deconstruct a basic human relationship that he had lost the ability to understand? If so, she wanted no part of his psychoanalysis.
"Are you going to try to argue that a kunoichi like me shouldn't have room for love?" she hissed heatedly, "
For a beat he was silent and his lips pursed slightly as if considering his next words. Odd that he seemed to be struck with a desire for tact, especially for someone who was his junior in both skill and age. Then again, he was a pensive person. During one of many sleepless nights, her thoughts would turn to that night when he had raped her. During it he wasn't overcome with what she could accurately label "excitement". He didn't 'do' "excitement", though their original battle seemed to have been an extraordinary exception.
No, his gaze that she had felt burning into her face whilst looming above her was...conviction. Stone-faced conviction. As if violating her and ultimately impregnating her had been a mission that an exemplary shinobi like himself had been conditioned to execute without the niggling dredges of human empathy. No sense of morals or ethics barred him from ensuring its completion.
It hadn't been the pain and the confusion that haunted her for days after the assault. No, it had been those empty eyes of his. There hadn't even been the luxury of pretending those eyes belonged to someone else. They had been his and she had seen her pain-twisted face reflected in his dead pupils.
"I will visit you again." He finally said as he stood up. His expression matched the seriousness of his next words: "Keep your window unlocked around this time and our meetings a secret, or I'll be forced to use more unpleasant means to ensure these arrangements continue as scheduled."
Sakura inwardly scoffed. Bloody confrontation was not his nature; he would most likely prefer drugging the sake reserves and pick the lock on her door before he'd consider strolling in the front door and slaughtering the staff and customers. But while his words were undoubtedly false, she couldn't in good faith ignore that blatant threat to the fragile stability she had cultivated here.
"Yeah, I know." she muttered, more to the baby than to him.
A hand entered her line of vision. She stiffened.
The brow of the infant was delicately caressed by long, thin fingers before descending to trace the outline of a plump cheek. The baby squinted in its sleep in response and tilted his head head away to nestle further into Sakura's chest before becoming still once more.
"Take care of him."
His tone made her look up and his face made her heart beat slow. Something in his face seemed...melancholy. How easily a neutral expression could twitch into this subtle mournful look she now saw this man wearing.
"I will."
He nodded once and, thoroughly subdued, trudged to the open window. Without looking back he slipped out and bounded away with not even a rustle of cloth to betray his former presence. Sakura hadn't bothered to look after him to watch his swift exit in whatever direction he had decided on. It wasn't like she was going to track him down herself any time soon.
MFW I don't know how to write dialogue or write at all.
