Sasuke was not in a position where he could freak out. Not again. Hinata needed him.
He was here. Back in Konoha, locked up with the new heir of the entire clan house of Hyuga- in a snowstorm- in the middle of the night.. a bit buzzed still from the scotch... pissed off.. what else?
Not alone. Reconsidering. Trying not to freak out- again. Not to freak out again. That essentially covered it. Sasuke watched Hinata sleep and tried to figure out what the hell he wanted.
What the fucking hell did he want?
Because it mattered now. He was going to do something. He was going to have to do something, Hinata's family was coming back. Hinata had to be protected from them, he could imagine what they'd do to her. Orochimaru would come looking for him, and the fucking Hokage might just toss him in prison and throw away the key.
And he probably wasn't quite well enough to go at it with the fucking Four, now that he thought about it. Or Hinata's goddamn family. Or whatever ANBU agents they'd send for him. Or bloody fucking hell goddamn Naruto. Or Sakura. Who would come for him, both of them. Who would barge in, he knew them too well.
He snarled under his breath, tightening his fists.
He had to think. Did he want to go back? Knowing fully what it was.. what Orochimaru would do to him.. and still want it?
Did he want the other option..? The prison, ANBU, Hyuga family, hunted-down-like-a-miserable-dog by Orochimaru option?
But he would have Hinata...
Maybe. Maybe he would have Hinata. Assuming he ever saw daylight again.
He had to stop, think. Act. Make a good, clear decision. He wanted to stay with her, but... he'd wanted Orochimaru, too. Hadn't he?
Of course. He'd wanted punishment. Well- he'd gotten it. And now he'd get even more. He was just lucky that way, wasn't he? Sasuke growled under his breath, and had to stop and tone it down, so he wouldn't wake Hinata.
Pacing was all right. That was quiet.
Hinata took the death of her father better then most would. No one took these things gracefully.
For a while, she simply stared into the flames, tense on the edge of the couch cushions. Her body was stiff and taut under the lame comforting arm Sasuke tried to put around her shoulders. He sensed that he should not talk to her, not yet. So he simply was there with her, in the same place. The time for talking would come. He'd tell her what he knew, that the pain never really went away, but it hollowed out. It became a part of you. He remembered, too, what had hurt him the most, on that night. Being alone. Being entirely achingly alone, all alone in the entire world.
But she took it much better then he had. That was something.
Hinata eventually collapsed into sleep. He lay her down carefully on the cushions and propped them under her head so that she wouldn't wake with neck pains, as he usually did. He took a certain perverse pride in being pointlessly careless with his own health, his own body. Like pain was something he wanted, and it was... Hinata slept for only a few hours, the silent backwash of energy from the storm pressed against the walls like slow dark tides. The wind was starting to die down. The fire was falling into deep embers and occasional snaps of sparks. He fed it a few more logs of cedar. He knelt and breathed soft little breaths of fire into the crumpled nests of old newspapers he set on the logs. The fire leapt up again, and flickered soft shadows across Hinata's sleeping face.
Sasuke slipped into the darkened hallway, pressed his hands against the icy windowpanes built into the paper facade of the tea cottage. They were frozen solid, completely blocked with an interlaced pattern of frost. He couldn't get a sense of the night air from them. It may have been around two in the morning. He hadn't slept well in days, not since he drank himself into a pleasant stupidly sentimental coma, the day Hinata had brought him the sake. The day, too, they had actually spoken, for the first time.
It had only been a few days. Less then a week.
Hinata had been too quiet, he thought, just after. She'd stared into the fire, too tense to be her normal self. He was worrying, keeping it down to a slow burn. He thought that he'd know what to do in the morning. He'd catch some rest. He'd get back to his more rational daytime self. At least the tears and panic had dried up.. been sucked right back down, by what had happened right in front of him.
He did sleep. He sat down beside her and moved her head gently into his lap. He lifted his feet off the cold floor. The fire blazed on, currents of heat washed over him and shifted slowly around him. He closed his eyes for what he thought would be a moment...
He dreamed of the soft surround-sound rustle of leaves. The darkness of the deep forest. The slow, effortless seduction... and he realized slowly in dreamtime that he was dreaming of the snake. Orochimaru's massive whiplash-quick snake, the Forest of Death falling into darkness all around him. Snakeskin had splintered, and Orochimaru had extruded himself out slowly, like dripping pus, Sasuke had thought, his stomach twisting. Maybe it was just the smell. Orochimaru, that snake, both of them smelled like a festering wound. Sweet and sickening, damp. He woke up retching, his hands grasping at his throat.
He remembered Hinata too late. But he hadn't woken her.
He wondered about her, anyway... as he ran his hands very lightly over her hair, trying to calm himself. Her softness... He'd meant it, that he would behave himself. He would try to be a gentleman, and trying was not good enough, he'd do it. He wondered about her.. about her hidden self, her secret desires.
He really had to wonder. His own sexual awakening had consisted of being shaken from a deep sleep to find Orochimaru's hand down his pants. He'd been slow to come to this point, slow for his age. Naruto raced ahead of him, Sakura looked back at him. And he understood, intellectually, but he didn't feel it. Not really. Itachi was in the way. Delaying him.. so that when the time came, he was made in Orochimaru's image.
And really, even given that... no better then any other godforsaken idiot teenage boy, pawing around with stupid lust and his tongue dragging out like an over-excited puppy. Getting whacked with the proverbial rolled-up newspaper, slapped away from Orochimaru's leg just as much as he was pushed to the ground, indulged, set damn near on fire inside. Dammit. That asshole. Orochimaru had done this. Sasuke knew that he wasn't this way when he was younger, this was Orochimaru's fault.
And surely Hinata came from a gentler world. She would have had time to dream.
He worried, anyway, about touching her with his filthy hands.. his body, used a million times over, Orochimaru drawing blood and chakra, pain and pleasure... Orochimaru's mark on him like a fingerprint bruise. Hinata may like him, and he was through whining about whether she did or not, but it didn't change where he'd been. What he'd done. He was possibly less of a contamination risk then some brainless feudal lord with a concubine stable and a braying enthusiasm for whoring, yes. Kunoichi must have some way of mitigating these risks. But... still. He felt guilty already.
But he could make a case for being different and better and above it. Because it wasn't just her body. It was her. He wanted her. All of her. It wouldn't be enough for him either, whatever they called this.. that vulgar expression. Fuck and run. He grimaced, rubbing at his tired eyes. Too much sharingan. He wasn't healed. His hand had stopped bleeding.
And it was fascinating to him. Her desires, hidden and dignified. Expressed perfectly, he thought.. with perfect clarity and timing. He'd rather think about this, rather then the same ordered set of calculated rage all the time. What sort of fantasies would a innocent girl have? Hinata had grown up in this house, it was practically a fairytale dungeon. There were servants and luxuries, gardens full of exotic plants and animals, endless paper halls swirling with an undertone of incense.. and intrigue. Her family would probably play the worst sort of decadent power games. Sasuke knew the type. Hinata wasn't telling him the half of it, he could tell.
So he tried to think about that, rather then worrying... a whole family consumed with light. Not in the ashen way his own clan had been. The Hyuga aspired to something higher, purer. They accepted no earthly limitations.
A childhood spent in a vast garden, an endless paper and wood castle of a house. He could imagine Hinata growing up here, playing in this closed, safe world of her own. It wouldn't be hard to become imaginative, whimsical, given this. His own compound had formed a dusty, ordered playground. Plants, stones, temple bells, carved and painted fans, the Uchiha were no-nonsense people. Everything in it's place. Order above all. Imagination and romantic fancy were useless to a policeman. You had to keep your eyes down to earth and your mind on the law.
The letter of the law. It had to be exact.
And it was a sacred duty, in the ordinary way that any essential task was. The Uchiha held up the pillars of the village. They were indispensable, fundamental. They were the foundation. But they were nothing like the Hyuga, who existed to rule at the pinnacle, to shine brightly. To simply be the best and brightest, always.
He sighed. It would be hard to compete with that. To be that. He wondered if the damned old woman had actually meant it.. he didn't want to dare to hope. Disappointment would be fatal. He didn't know what Hinata would think.. what she would do.
What he would do.. what could he do? It would be like trying to compete with fucking Naruto, with Naruto's wild exotic fiery demonic energy, Naruto's infectious brightness and enthusiasm, Naruto's endless magical gift to imagine and strive and escape the ordered boxes that life sorted him into. Sasuke proceeded swiftly and surely along straight paths of intention. But Naruto danced joyful circles around him. Sasuke knew it. Hated it. Knew it.
You couldn't compete with that. Not with that kind of otherworldly brilliance.
The Hyuga were a good compromise, though, he thought. They were so high, they shone so brightly, but there was order and tradition and control to their ways. They weren't like Naruto, who could do anything at any moment, who could spiral completely out of control just a heartbeat or breath's space away. They were closer, Sasuke thought, to what he wanted, to what he could accept. He'd thought- and raged at length- about how fucking Naruto was closer, Naruto had the power that could take Itachi, extinguish him completely, just fucking snuff him out. Naruto could blast Itachi into dust. Sasuke could only flail for Itachi's hand and pull him down, maybe land a few scratches, not even manage to irritate his brother.. and he couldn't get angry right now, not with Hinata right next to him, so he bit hard at the side of his lip.
It felt good, punishment. Clean, absolute. Right.
That was the way. Maybe. The Hyuga. He could become better then Itachi, beat Itachi at his own game. Supersede him.
He was doing it.
He realized it.
He was moving, changing, altering his plans, he was-
There was nothing left in him to throw up. He wasn't going out in that fucking storm again, not even to throw a fit, not even to purge this feeling, no. He was going to move forward, he was going to realize this, and it didn't mean that he was losing his way, it didn't mean that he was losing everything, it didn't mean that he wasn't going to kill Itachi, he was getting closer, he was getting better and stronger, he had to move through this panic, he had to hold fast, he had to-
Breathe. Stay. Change.
Somehow. Rest his eyes, invite sleep, tempt fate. Just let fate move him, and not ruin the timing and reflex with too much thought. Just let her.. let her save him.
But he had to do something. That was for certain.
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Hinata couldn't understand why she was not crying. She pulled on Sasuke's sleeve, twisting it nervously in her hands. She still wasn't crying. Her eyes were dry. Why couldn't she cry? Why wasn't she crying?
Darkness flowed over Sasuke as he bent to toss more wood into the fire. When he leaned down, his loose shirt fell down his shoulder. She saw something on his neck, a dark angry smudge. It bled charka, she could see, black photonegative chakra, solar-white against the darkness.
"Sasuke-kun.." she whispered.
He turned. He said it was sannin-Orochimaru-sama's mark. This was Orochimaru's claim on him.. and.. he put her fingers on it and she gasped, as if burnt. It buzzed and moved, it rippled like a bursting nest of insects. Hinata yanked her hand back.
Sasuke caught her hand in his. "It's just genjutsu."
"Genjutsu just from touching it?" she whispered, looking up at him in alarm.
Firelight moved over his face. Soft shadows. There was a sad kind of amusement in his eyes. "Yes." he said.
But what... what on earth was it like, then, being with that man, his sensei? Being under his hand and subject to him.. Hinata couldn't imagine.. she couldn't even begin to think of what it must be like. She pressed her cheek into his chest and quivered. She was grateful when he hugged her tightly. "I think that you must get away from him," she whispered in a rush. "You must.. I know I have no right to.. but.. Sasuke-kun.." her voice was shaking. The tears were coming. Finally...
In a confused rush. A long slide. She felt her shoulders buckle. She felt that maybe.. maybe Sasuke would rather she didn't get him all wet with tears, not again. Not twice in one night.
But Sasuke pulled her tighter. His hands were insistent on her shoulders, around her back. A tear rolled down her nose and onto his chest, a bare patch of skin above the loose collar of Neji's robe-shirt. "I'm sorry..." she whispered.
"Don't be." he said, softly, above her.
She didn't remember falling asleep.
Towards morning... Sasuke was taking care of things. He was being what she should be. Strong and resolute.
Hinata was feeling numb. And hollow. There was nothing in her, not even the chakra signal of her heart. It she were to use her byakugan in the mirror now, she'd see nothing. A shadow of flesh. She touched her hands, seeing if they were still there. Tears came, but there was nothing behind them. She didn't know... what... what could be done. What could she do? When her mother had died, she'd been only five years old. She'd been unable to think. She hadn't had to. Sasuke handled the papers. He read them to her. The legal details flowed over her and slipped out of her numb fingers. She was the executrix and the heir. The lawyers would come, the family would come. Hinata would have to stand strong and face them. She tried to feel something. The tears running down her face... Nothing. All her insides were scooped out.
"Gutted," Sasuke said, distantly, when he asked her if she was feeling better, and she mumbled a lame answer. "I remember it." She was safe in his arms. He was reading the letter from her father's lawyer, about the estate. He said something to her, then. She tucked it away for later, with a fumbling hand. She went to wipe her eyes and her fingers slipped over her face.
"I'll be nineteen in July," Sasuke had said. "Until then, the Uchiha estate is held in trust for me.." Hinata thought distantly that this should mean something to her.
"I'm.. I'm sorry.." she whispered, mortified. "I'm sorry.. I.. I can't.."
"I will tell you that it's all right," he said to her, soft and calm. "..as many times as necessary." The affection was there, warm and comfortable. In his voice... at just that moment. Hinata thought that maybe she could sleep. But she couldn't. Her eyes just kept leaking. Her insides puckered closed, like they were mourning their own losses. It still felt like her father was out there, somewhere. He would come home. The family would be there, and he would be there too.
Morning came. Slowly. In slow breaking waves.
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What he wanted. It was worth thinking about, because this was the way Orochimaru operated.
Sasuke had suspected that Orochimaru would twist his arm. At least, surely, Orochimaru would blackmail him. Maybe Orochimaru would simply snatch him and sell him back to the Hokage. Orochimaru would certainly cut out his sharingan, right? Try to learn it's secrets? Probably while Sasuke was still alive, because everyone knew that that would be far more fun. And that smirky little fucker Kabuto would hold Sasuke down while Orochimaru gouged out Sasuke's eyes. Right? Of course, Orochimaru was a criminal. That's what criminals did. Just ask Sasuke's father.
Orochimaru did none of these things.
Instead, Orochimaru played games.. and told jokes. He liked to tell Sasuke jokes, it was bizarre. None of them were funny.
"Ah, you have no sense of humor, Sasuke-kun." Orochimaru said lazily. Orochimaru liked to dress up in women's clothes. Sasuke thought that this was odd, yes, but Orochimaru also liked to wear women's makeup. Orochimaru liked to wear women's underwear, and then one day Sasuke turned around and Orochimaru was a woman, he had possessed a female body.
Or something. God only knew.
Orochimaru also did a lot of amateur medical research, from the looks of the sub-basements. The sounds coming up from those stone halls at all hours of the day were still impossible for Sasuke to describe, even after six years of in-depth education in sound magic.
And torture was just torture. He'd been taught, as much as one could be taught- to withstand it. That was basic academy training. But what Orochimaru was doing to those people...
Orochimaru knit his jade-tipped fingers and said patiently that no, Sasuke simply did not understand the scientific method. "If I have fifty rats, I force-feed ten to death, feed ten a lighter dose, so on." Fifty people, villagers of all ages, since Orochimaru didn't discriminate for age or gender. Fifty gruesome deaths. A wave of Orochimaru's ornate hand.
There was also the sex. If you could call it that.
It wasn't rape. Sasuke had decided that. And, also, it wasn't as if Orochimaru had to force him exactly, was it? He didn't consent. He didn't not consent. He stayed silent. He let Orochimaru do what he wanted. Consent by default, maybe. It wasn't rape and Sasuke wasn't going to claim it was, even if it would improve his clemency case to the Hokage.
There was actually a good chance that it might.
He was busy thinking of his father, too. Legalities. Probably because of Hinata's father, and the complicated legal documents her family had sent with the notification of death. There would be lawyers coming as well. The house would be full of Hyuga with lawyers. Sasuke wasn't sure if he wanted to stick around to see that or not.
Secretly, he sort of liked lawyers. Judges. His father had taken him to the village tribunals once or twice. It had been a rare treat. He'd stared at the judge's gavel, trying to work up the courage to ask his father if he could bang it down himself. Just once. Decision made, no quibbles- wham! He liked that. He still liked that. He was smiling even though he was also thinking of Orochimaru, and that pissed him off.
But the thing that annoyed him most about Orochimaru was the way Orochimaru played. You couldn't say that he strategized, that he attacked... Orochimaru didn't seem to have actual goals and plans so much as appetites.. whims. Impulses, perfect reflexes that worked on people emotionally the way Sasuke's trained sword arm snapped, perfectly timed. Supernaturally timed. Orochimaru just had that knack for it. He could twist people. Catch their interest. Use them.
Sometimes Orochimaru would get into a particular mood and decide that he was a 'predator', and it would all be predators and prey for the next few hours. But no, Orochimaru was a game player. He was a fucking conman to be exact. Sasuke watched him work. Sasuke watched him hand the choices to his victims, let them choose. Orochimaru never lifted a painted finger. Orochimaru made them come to him.
Sasuke really had expected Orochimaru to just beat him half to death then pull him out of the exam. Why shouldn't he? Orochimaru was far stronger then anyone in Konoha. Sasuke had been ready for it. He'd been puzzled when Orochimaru simply bit him and left. It hadn't made sense to him.
Choose, Orochimaru said. The choice is yours, Sasuke-kun.
It was ridiculous that he'd go with a creature like Orochimaru. He wasn't even sure if Orochimaru was human at all. He wasn't sure that Orochimaru hadn't just been some exceptional genjutsu cooked up by another genin team. He'd fallen into the seal's fever, sweated and twisted in nightmares on the forest floor. Woken up dizzy and half-delirious to stand his match in the second round. And he'd won. He remembered Sakura pulling on his sleeve... not understanding him. Not understanding him at all, or what he had to do, what this all was for.
It had seemed strange, at that moment, to find her purely irritating again. That wasn't how he'd felt, hours ago. Days ago, at the forest gate. Across the swirling bridge of nightmares. He wasn't thinking. That was probably the last time he thought clearly at all.
Choose, Orochimaru said, but he burnt this mark in, stacked the deck. Sasuke knew something of a how a permanent jutsu mark worked. The perfect singularity of it's purpose. This one, the seal of heaven, lay right over major nerve clusters. Those that descended to the body, the cranial nerves snaking up just behind them. To say that it had it's poison roots twisted into his nervous system would be to state the blindingly obvious. He hadn't thought clearly since it had been put in. He hadn't really been himself, had he?
He'd felt it's slow poison trickle through his spine. He'd looked at Naruto and Sakura and felt himself recede from them. The closeness vanished. Choose, Orochimaru said. But was any of it a free choice?
Conversely. Was he truly innocent in any of it? The seal turned upon his will. The cursemark moved with his worst nature. All of it lay in his hands. He chose. He went. His demons defeated him, and Orochimaru won. Just as Orochimaru said he would. He'll seek me for power. Like Orochimaru knew beforehand, it was all predestined.
So it was worth thinking about, what he wanted. Because Orochimaru was all about the roll of the dice. Choose, he said. Choose.
Sasuke had to think about what the hell he wanted. What side he was on. He put his hand over the heaven seal and knew it was time to make that final choice.
---------------------------------------------------
"This will help." Sasuke whispered in her ear. He was sitting behind her, she was perched in his lap. He was kneading her shoulders. Distracting her. She was semi-conscious that this was... the exact method she had used before. The simple applied chakra manipulation she'd used on him. She'd learned it from Sakura, who wanted to see what she could do with it. Sasuke had even figured out the chakra point acupressure. Hinata wanted to know how he did that. She couldn't figure that out.
"The sharingan." he said, close to her ear.
He really did have a warm, soft voice when he wanted to. When he wasn't hunching it down into a hissing low register.
"This is to distract you," he said, with firm authority. "Concentrate on this instead. Your body, and your dreams. Nothing can change what has happened, Hinata."
She was overwhelmed, too, by the closeness. The chakra signals of his hands, his heart and blood moving behind it. The intricate electrical glimmers that danced silently all around him. She held the byakugan at half-mast. She just listened to him, still numb. Wet, soggy, and numb. Gutted. Hollowed out.
"Hinata." he said, pausing on her name. "Nothing can change it. You'll feel better if you think of something else."
She sniffled and pressed yet another sodden kleenex to her pink, swollen nose. She hid her face in his lap, in the folds of his pants. "But.. I can't think of anything else." she whispered. "I can't forget. I don't want to, my father..."
"Shh." His firm, gentle hand on the back of her neck. Stroking away the tension with a precise touch of his forefinger to the exact spot. "You won't forget. Don't worry. Hinata, you can let go. Nothing will ever make you forget."
She sniffled and tried not to cry, and listened to him. Full circle, she thought. I was doing this. I was trying to comfort him, saying meaningless things. And now he does this for me...
It was hard to believe. It was still a shock that he liked her. Not just in the brief, callous way that men seemed to like women, people seemed to use one another, out in the world beyond. He would do this for her. He wanted to do this for her. There would be no other reason. Sakura had told her, Naruto had told her. She'd never been in their team, but she'd been close to it for long enough. Sasuke was not a sensitive person. He was not a particularly caring person. He was doing this for her, unasked. Unrewarded. She was just lying in a pathetic lump, crying. He liked her. It was new. Frightening. It couldn't be denied or doubted for a moment longer.
But she couldn't do anything. She couldn't hold up her end of the silence. She couldn't bolt in nervous terror. She listened. Sasuke said that she should be aware of her body, build intense awareness of it. "Train." he said. "Meditate." And he stroked the chakra as it moved through her, pulling her mind away, he said. Relaxing her. He said she'd feel better, then. Her body would take over. He said that he'd stumbled upon this as a child. He'd trained every day. On the day after the massacre, he trained as usual. He said it comforted him. "When you're feeling better," he told her softly. "we'll spar."
Right now, he said, he wanted her to dream.
She couldn't think of what. She said that she remembered her dreams, but-
He stopped her. He said he wanted her to tell him about thing things she'd dreamed of. The dreams that had shaped her life. As a child. As a young teenager. And now, as an adult.
"I wanted to be like my father," she whispered. "I wanted to be the Hyuga clan's heir."
"You are the Hyuga heir." he said, firmly. "That's what you are. Tell me what you want to become."
But she couldn't touch that part of herself. She was too numb.
"Then sleep," he said. Tiredly, she thought.
"I'm sorry." she whispered.
"I said," he told her, with gentleness, she thought "to not be." He kissed her cheek. It did make her feel a bit better. She still felt.. strangely.. irrationally convinced that her father was.. well. She knew that he father was dead. But he didn't feel dead, to her. She could imagine him coming home. She could picture meeting him at the gate. It felt almost likely. But her eyes were falling closed. Sasuke was running his hand lightly over the skin of her neck. She felt the flare as he nudged the sleep point. But only that, nothing else after.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sasuke knew it was a facade of calm, and it was a faulty one, besides. He lost it anyway. Deep in the early morning. Hinata was resting. The clocks had stopped, but it must have been around four am.
He smashed his fist against the tile floor of the kitchen. The cut in his hand ripped itself open- good!, he thought, savagely. Good! Blood dripped from under his clenched fingers. He drove his hand into the floor again. It hurt. Good!
He knew what was going on!
He knew exactly what the problem was. He was thinking of abandoning his fucking mission.
Which was everything. He was losing it.
Orochimaru was shaking him. Getting too far in, starting to mess around with something other then his body, things that actually mattered.
That fucking snake. He'd thought this might happen.
Or maybe it was Hinata, but he couldn't bring himself to curse her. She was a bystander. She'd acted in compassion, in rightness of her inner moral compass. She felt her attraction in response to his. He couldn't hate her for just feeling and acting as her heart dictated. He couldn't hate himself- much- for letting her.
The whole mess was unavoidable, all parts converging, like a high-speed collision.
But. Maybe.
Maybe the Hyuga were something he could understand. They had what he needed. He heard the lines of intention forming behind Hinata's words, imagining as she spoke that all those lines were crystallizing into the perfect focus of her byakugan. That she would see clearly and strike true.
..he could believe that. She would do what she said.
Maybe he should just breathe deeply, hold still, and let her.
And that concluded that fit. Having done so, he washed his bloodied hand off in the sink, splashed water onto his face and got himself sorted out enough to go back upstairs. It was warmer there. The wind was whispering again, like the conversational voices of dead spirits. He found Hinata turned onto her side, pressing her little cheek into the pillows he'd placed under her. Hinata's expression had changed, and now there was a hint of sorrow to it. The knowledge had come into her dreams, he thought. She had remembered, even as she dreamt. He couldn't stroke that away from her, but he could hold her carefully. He could reassure her, too, in her dreams. He could let her know that he was there.
He got the blanket around them, and she shifted, but didn't wake. Settling back against the cushions, he thought again that this was a worry. Being here. Night was a bad time for him in general.. but...
At least, that had been the first nightmare. Just an old snatch of memory, imprinted terror. The snapshot of the kunai flying, the skin-crawling illusion of death, but.. That was hidden. It was only implied. He forced his body to relax, breathing slowly, methodically. An easy nightmare this time. Just the snake.
Not for nothing. He was closest then, in the forest. Closest to resurfacing. He had the memories, sharingan-bright and sharp. The vivid white of Naruto's eye, the sheen of sweat on Sakura's pale face. The grass-nin breathing hotly down his neck... Naruto coming out of the trees like a bolt of barbed sunlight. All of it, too, colored with the slow burn of his own clumsy affection. It had just been starting then. He had just been beginning to feel it, and realize it. He remembered Sakura, warm and alive in his arms as he tore away from the grass-nin, Naruto just a heartbeat behind.
Just the three of them, together. They were almost... almost.. healing him. In the fractured second before Orochimaru lazily descended. Ripped that hope to shreds.
He'd known that he shouldn't think of this. He couldn't stop, having started.
It was so fucking raw, still. After six years! He wasn't supposed to be this sentimental.
But he wasn't supposed to be an emotionless sadist, either, was he? That wasn't what he'd been, as child. Before.
Back, then. Back to the beginning.. where it had all begun. The forest. The closeness of his team. He swore he'd never become a believer, but he had. They'd grown on him. Like a fungus, Sasuke thought, and grimaced. He still missed them... he didn't know how he'd face them. Which would hurt more... the hope and love in Sakura's eyes or the desperation and anger in Naruto's. There had been love in Naruto's eyes, too... at the waterfall. It had scared the shit out of him.
After that, too.. when they bounced him from his bedroom in Otokagure. What a waste of time and energy that had been. What a fatal mistake.. It had taken him weeks to steady himself again. To put his porcelain kabuki mask face back in place. Painted-on eyes. Orochimaru hovering over him, careful with the paintbrush. Painting, he remembered, his nails. Painting his nails ivory black. By candlelight. In the mausoleums under thousands of dead formaldehyde eyes.
The snake.. he thought, in the fire-lit present. He hadn't wanted it. He'd been terrified, the first time he saw it. He'd felt his heart drop into his stomach when the snake had yawned wide, oceans of sickening wet pink opening under him. He'd ran.. and actually.. he remembered fully now. He'd panicked. Naruto had caught him at it. Taunted him. Thrown that stupid throwaway insult back in his face. Scaredy-cat! Ha! Naruto hadn't understood anything...
And it didn't do him a damn bit of good, any of this. So he turned to the hard facts. The legalities of Hinata's estate.
It was sort of soothing.. all the legal terminology. Cut and dried. Nonwithstanding clauses. Clean articles of faith.. of who owned what.. of how things should be.
Fantasy, too. Fantasies fading in, around the edges. Like soft flower scent. He thought he'd placed it, actually. She smelled like lavender. Ginger. The other one, the one that had been hardest to place... and it made him smile, remembering it. Chamomile.
They could... he could. They'd find a way. If he could destroy his life against all odds, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, surely he could rebuild it, too.
A million hidden, mysterious, invisible hands moving and changing the atmosphere, altering the world around him. Trying to change his heart, trying to get at him, where Orochimaru could not. The whole fucking world now, trying to save him.
Or maybe, just deigning to offer him a chance.
But if he did that, if he let go... it he even moved an inch, he could lose his way. Nothing would make sense. Nothing did make sense, but at least his life worked in a way that pulled him together and pushed him forward. Itachi's death would solve something that would bring him nothing, but he just couldn't live without it.
And Sasuke was still going to kill him. That was everything. That was what he was.
Avenger. He'd avoided talking to Hinata about vengeance. What was the point? It was his. It was something that existed outside the warmth and affection of her world. Vengeance was here to stay, he was just here for a visit.
But anger wouldn't come to save him and force him to leave. Nothing would. So he was an avenger... she was a reformer. Which of them would do more damage? It wasn't too hard to think about. It almost felt good. To imagine there was someone who would understand, someone who was like him.
He'd hated that the most. Being alone. In every way...
And the time for recriminations was turning short. The time was drawing near. There was only so much time to work with...
The decision was made. He only had to take the steps. Seal the agreement, like an inkstone stamp. Like his name on the contractual line. Lock himself in, make it so he couldn't go back. He wanted that. He wanted her. More then Orochimaru.. more then more pain. Itachi would still die, he'd deal with that. But he wanted it. Her. This. He thought that maybe he could handle that. And he knew one way.
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Hinata sat like a numb, useless little girl and watched Sasuke made coffee. He was still able to function and be calm. She watched him hang the kettle, boil the water. She watched him flip the lightswitch back and forth once, scowling. Outside the storm was silent, the darkness was all-consuming.
The seal ached. Sasuke efficiently dismantled the coffee machine and poured hot water though the paper filter. holding it in line with the glass pot. He washed it out in the icy cold tap water after, running his finger over the stained ring on the bottom, grimacing.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," Hinata murmured, watching him.
"That's natural." he said, after a long moment.
"I..." she whispered, staring down into the steaming ring of her cup. The bubbles moved, bunching up against one another. Heat moved in waves.. the world went on, just as Sasuke had said. And soon the sun would rise, she couldn't believe he was gone. She couldn't believe she'd never see her father again- and she was crying again, weeping over her coffee. She felt so useless...
Sasuke hugged her through the blanket he'd put around her shoulders. Carefully, he nudged her hair away from the hot liquid with precise fingertips. "Hinata." he said, warm and real against her ear. "You don't have to do anything. I'll take care of you."
I'll stay. I'll protect you. I'll be with you. I'll take care of you.
"Is that enough.. will that be enough?" he'd whispered, after he'd said that. He sounded so.. young. Like he hoped against hope. Hinata had just dissolved into useless tears again.
"It's all right." he whispered. He squeezed her tightly. "It's all right..."
Morning faded in. Hinata could imagine, remember, mornings like this. Winter mornings in her calm, ordered house. The sound of the radio murmuring high and electrical from the kitchen. The damp incandescent lights, steamed from the pots boiling on the stove. Hanabi would be there, sometimes, back when she still wanted to get up early, she was so excited to go to school. Hanabi loved being a ninja... Hinata was crying again. Everything made her cry, now.
Sasuke put the papers away. He told her he'd handle it, he'd talk to the lawyers for her. He said that his father had taught him how to deal with the district attorney.. he remembered by example.
"...what?" Hinata had whispered miserably, half-blinded with tears.
"My father was a policeman." Sasuke whispered. "Maybe I will be one, too.." he released her, went to tend the kettle again. He was making miso soup for them. His hands already smelled faintly of dried seaweed. Things had been going too fast before. Now they were soundless. Still. The morning hung on a long moment.
"What... what time is it?" Hinata asked, finally. She was dabbing at her eyes with one of the damp tissues. She was leaving them everywhere.
Sasuke reached over and gently pushed back the sleeve of her jacket, then the mesh cuff under it. Hinata couldn't see the hands of her watch, just it's cut crystal face, tilted on angle. "Quarter to six." he said.
"My family.." she whispered, wet and damp and horribly stupid, too stupid and little to deal with this.
"Don't worry about that." Sasuke said to her, softly. She felt him smooth the hair from the side of her face. His hands could be so gentle.. she was already crying.. she couldn't cry harder. "I'll handle them." Sasuke said. "Hinata.. really." The gentle brush of his lips on her forehead. "I'll take care of you."
Hinata just curled herself up into a dripping, sniffling little ball. "I... I know." she whispered, her voice shaking. "I know." Her eyes were sore and wet, she closed them and found his arm by touch. She ran her fingers up over his shoulder, gently. Found the burn mark, where his sensei's mark had been...
He let her touch it. He relaxed in her arms as she did. She had to realize it over and over again, that this was real. That he really meant it. He wasn't going back.. maybe, maybe he really wasn't going back...
She'd been there, awake. When he came to her out of the lower level, melting into the fire's light. It had touched his cheek, first. The hard lines of his face. The soft sparkle of his dark eyes. She'd never seen that look on his face before. It had stopped her. She was still numb then.
He told her what he wanted to do. He explained it very calmly. Very precisely. Hinata watched as he pulled down the zipper of her coat, kneeling before her. She forget to catch her breath as his fingers whispered through the inner pockets. He found the hidden kunai she kept there, and it gleamed in the shadow between them. Hinata had turned her eyes and saw the bottle of vodka he'd left on the floor at her feet. She looked back at him.
She had touched his hair, his face.. his shoulder, where the seal burned into him. "It hurts, doesn't it?" she'd said. "It must be eating into you.. constantly..."
"That's right." he said. He put the kunai into her hand.
But what a strange way.. to take a vow. To seal an agreement. To lock his destiny to hers, seal it in blood. She had whispered that, not caught herself from speaking her thoughts in time. And he'd turned, haloed in the firelight. He'd nodded, once. His strange, soft half-smile. Like in that moment, in the cold dying magic of the night and the storm, the fire turning red behind him... Hinata could see the boy he had been. Before his sensei, his brother.. before the dark hands had come out the night.
"But it will hurt," she'd argued, even as he was tearing Neji's shirt into strips. "You'll bleed.. It's right on your neck, we'll have to move the rug.." She'd put her hand to the back of her own neck, the same spot. Felt how thin the skin was there. "I'll hurt you.." she whispered.
"You've sharpened it recently." he said, gesturing to the kunai in her hand. With one motion he'd twisted the cork out of the bottle. "You can sterilize it in the kettle." he added.
"But, if you bleed too much.."
"If you heat the blade in the fire then you can cauterize it," he said, raising the bottle. Very calmly, she thought. Like he found some strange hint of peace in this. "You'll have to do it. I can't do it with chidori, my hand will shake."
He was tipping the bottle back, the long white column of his throat was rippling, as he drank. The vodka bottle glistened crystal and ice-clear in the shifting firelight. "It will hurt too much." he said, the weight of the bottle pulling his hand down to his side, no grace or control in that motion. "I'll just induce a seizure.. I'll bleed out.." grimly, his voice tight and focused. And his eyes lost in the shadows, one little glint of firelight in each, as he stood on an angle to her, his dark hair falling onto his white neck, the black smudge blooming like dark petals under it.
"You'll pass out.." she whispered.
"Yes.." he said, with a strange half-smile. "Just like when it was made."
"But it will hurt so much.." she said, suppressing a shiver. "People go into shock, when this happens in the field, when you have to cut white phosphorus and barbs out of them.. Sasuke-kun.." She didn't want to hurt him. He seemed to see that. He bent to pick up the bottle again. He held it up, showing it to her. The level had gone down to the half-mark. There was a glistening of wetness on his lips, even in half-shadow.
"It won't hurt as much now," he said, shrugging. He almost.. almost smiled.
"...okay.." she'd said, finally. She'd gotten up. Her heart was muttering, moving somewhere, rushing behind the numbness. "Okay." she'd whispered. She wound torn cotton around the kunai's handle and held it in the flames. She did what he said.
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Hinata balked, as he expected she would, when he asked her to cut out the seal.
She also relented. He expected that too. He was beginning to be able to read her backwards and forwards, understand her in a way that was more then skin deep.
He was drunk, pleasantly drunk, when she did it. He knelt before her and leaned over her lap. She braced her fingers against his shoulder. He could feel the heat of the blade even as she held it over his skin, preparing herself. She wanted to know if he wanted her to count down, to warn him.
"No," he told her. "Just do it."
Two cuts. One deep, one very deep, scraping bone. His shoulders twisted, he had to knot his muscles up to keep still, and it made it hurt more. Pain was like that, unimaginable. You couldn't hold it in your mind, you couldn't be ready for it.
The smell hit him first, just ahead of the pain. The smell of burning flesh. She held the flat of the kunai hard against the wound. Cauterizing it, like he'd told her. He quivered under her searing hand, shaking right through. His shoulder blades twitched, skittery reflex. He was pressing up, pressing harder against the hot blade. It hurt. He had to bite down on a scream. It did what he wanted, hurt so badly. Made it feel right.
Somehow, he didn't lose consciousness. Hinata cast jutsus over him, pressing icy hands to the burn. He heard her sharp intake of breath.. knew that it must look horrible. She bandaged him up with the strips of his shirt. He sat on the couch and drank the rest of the vodka, feeling the heat of the fire soak into his bare chest. Felt perversly pleased. His arm was useless, though. Stiff and agonized right down to his fingertips. But it had done what he'd wanted.
Pain was satisfying. It made things real to him. It made this real. It proved to himself that yes- yes. He really was going to do this. Orochimaru would come, and Sasuke would anticipate that. But Sasuke was not going back to him. Orochimaru could handle it. Let him do the footwork for a change. He did pass out, finally. Dreamt of nothing. Just the way he liked.
He was still a bit buzzed when he woke. Hinata was staring into the fire again. His hands were clumsy, but he pulled her to him. He read through the paperwork again. The hangover only poked at him, disinterested, as morning began, slowly, to happen. Behind the scenes.. He felt almost good. He felt almost hopeful. He felt like this just might be right. It hurt, just the way it should. He saw to that. Now he could deal with Hinata and act the way he should, as well.
Not.. that it was all right, though. Him. He was still himself. And he knew something about this. Every clumsy connection he made was built on the foundation of the others.
If. If this were to go further. It would be built upon...
Naruto. Itachi.
And Orochimaru, who'd squirmed his way in, one way or another.
Complicated, violent, difficult relationships with, ultimately, other boys and men, all of whom were just as fucked up and sick and filthy as he was, who he could scream and rage and tear at. He could do anything.
She would be his first. He didn't like doing things without preparation. He'd tried- contemplated trying- with Sakura, close to the end when he felt her and Naruto starting to change his heart, when he wanted them, maybe, to come closer, heal him just a bit more, finish it. He'd thought... maybe he should let Sakura come close. She was too loud, but she was smart. She was strong, too, in ways that he hadn't noticed. She had more sense then he and Naruto did. He'd thought about how that could be done, then... Orochimaru came. Itachi reappeared. It was all over.. it all just sped off to hell. But the point was, he didn't really know how to be involved with women. He warned Hinata of this, and she nodded. She'd been warned. She accepted him anyway...
So.. maybe. Maybe it would be all right.
He watched her sleep. She drifted in and out of consciousness. His blood was still on her hands, watery with the alcohol. She'd used it to cool and disinfect the burn, poured it over her hands, too. Anointing them. It formed a strange ritual. His heart given, maybe.. by his blood on her hands, the poisoned flesh she'd cut out of him. That was his sort of ceremony. That was a vow he could take, it would almost mean more then a ring.
And he'd have the money, too, when he was nineteen. He could do this properly. Buy her a decent one. He could make some sort of case to her family... and he knew he was getting way.. way.. ahead of himself. She hadn't even.. even. He sighed, calming himself, quieting his racing thoughts.
It was done. He was trapped, now. He couldn't go back. He had to move forward. He clenched his fists, felt the jab of agony flash up his arm, the weak shuddering after-echo of pain in the muscle. His entire body was shocked, still. It drowned out the noise in his head, as he'd planned. Just like he wanted.
Hinata woke up and sealed it. Her way. Perfectly. Gentle fists. No cause and no warning.. And it was done, he was finished. He would do this. He had to. He was done.
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Hinata thought that she'd spent the entire night with a soaked tissue in her hand.
Sasuke followed her and picked them up, without comment. Without complaint, putting them in the steel wastebasket under the sink, in the kitchen. The tall green candles in the little practice room were burning down. Morning was coming. Sasuke was there, now, moving through a morning kata, keeping one eye on her, she knew. Even when she ducked out of sight. When she went to make them tea, because she couldn't stand doing nothing. She couldn't just sit in a sodden heap on the tatami mat he'd unrolled for her, watching him move with such sharp, sudden grace.
"Sasuke." she said, when she returned with the tray. Forgetting the honorific. She planned nothing. She discussed nothing with him. She didn't even know if he wanted this... All that talk of lawyers and estates and planning.. her family rising with the sun, far beyond the clouds, hidden in fading darkness, outside. Her half-finished cup of coffee going stone cold in the kitchen below. "Sasuke-kun," remembering the honorific. Still not self-possessed, or sure what she was doing. "I remember my vow.." she whispered. "I said.."
When she couldn't speak, he spoke for her. He filled in the silence. "You'll change the clan house. I remember." He moved through a flurry of perfect, crisp kicks. Even his injured arm moved with perfect rhythm, he moved it high, and out of the way. She saw the slow drag of the movement, but he moved with it, he made gravity work with him, not against it. Hinata hunched her shoulders and felt small and stupid. He'd want her to stop that. Having never been intimidated by him and his quicksilvery flashing talent before, he wouldn't want her to start now.
He wouldn't let her, as it turned out. He kept talking to her. Unhurried, easy. In his own quiet way, but in a way that he seemed to enjoy, a half-smile on his face. Contentment. As if he already had made all his decisions... Hinata blinked, watching. She felt lost.
"Yes.." she mumbled. Her throat was tight and groggy. She sniffled. She rummaged in her jacket pocket for another tissue. She must look absolutely horrible, she thought. Her nose and eyes all red from crying.. Almost no sleep... "I remember... too." she whispered.
"I know that you will do it," Sasuke said, quite matter-of-factly. "You are a sensible girl.. and more then that.." he snapped out punches, a kick, spin, perfect footwork. "..you are a strong person. Don't tell Naruto, but.." Kick. Shifted weight, snapped kick, into a long hard burst of taijutsu, out of the kata now, somewhere else, some heavenly higher plane created in his perfectly-trained body, perfect harmony of motion with his chakra. "..you're stronger then me...." he said, catching the landing. Clean and perfect. "As a person." he added. "If not as a fighter, and your taijutsu is quite good.. maybe if I trained you.." And moving again, moving in perfect rhythm, Hinata thought, with his thoughts. She could almost feel them.. feel them move together. Feel it all fall into place.
"That's not true." she whispered. Her shoulders hunched in embarrassment. She was blushing. Her entire face was red now. She blew her nose, shattering the moment, she thought.
But Sasuke only shook his head firmly. "No. It is true. I'll stay with you." He slid into the ready stance, smooth as silk, silent. Hinata watched him shape the half-darkness, all of it moving around him. "I think.. that you're what I need..." And he went on with the kata, a new one this time. It looked like a sword form. He had spoken as if this was a self-evident fact.. and quite normal, besides. As if he hadn't.. hadn't just... The ragged edge of the tissue stung her eyelids as Hinata wiped them.
"We'll wait for the sun to rise," Sasuke was saying. He was planning the entire day for them now. "The storm has broken, I think.. the front door is frozen shut. The power..." Moving. Still. "..it's still out. The power lines must be all down.. " And then, a bit hesitantly. "Hinata. Maybe.. " he straightened, and turned his lead foot, step-turning to face her across the polished wood floor. "Would you like to go for a walk? The ice will be everywhere, and no one will have seen it yet, or walked on the snow..."
With that note in his voice. Younger, freer, then anything she could have imagined she'd hear from him.
"After that, we'll wait for your family to return." he said. "I'll turn myself in..." he made a soft sound of irritation, the tenor of his voice changing just slightly, back down to the grim low mumble that had seemed so normal for him before. "...dammit.. fine, I'll go with Naruto.. and Sakura. They'll come here.. right..?" he looked up at Hinata, seeming to pull himself back up again. "I'll wait for them to come." he shrugged, almost easily. Almost relaxed. "...to pay their respects." Back to the kata. Kicks, punches. Perfect supernatural taijutsu.
"...just like that.?" she whispered, wide-eyed behind the soggy tissue she pressed to her nose and lips. "You'll stay with me, just like that?"
"There's nothing else to do." he said, as if this, too, was just a fact. On with the kata. Not even breaking stride. Hinata watched him, watched the seamless unbroken flow of his motions. He was so wickedly fast. The chakra moved through him like lines of bright fire. She could get lost in watching him, fall into the fiery scatters of chakra. She could forget so much, just watching him. He really was beautiful. Strong. Precise. Somehow, too, he was interested in her. A little white Hyuga mouse. What for? She sighed. She wiped at her eyes. She didn't have any tears left over for herself. She couldn't start crying when she was already crying. And her own little lowly self-esteem problems were so small. They were dull and everyday. She was distracted. She still couldn't help but feel that this, all of this, was a strange dream. She'd wake up, and feel the slow return of reality. Her father would still be alive. Of course he was still alive, out in the world beyond. That's what this felt like. And Sasuke was still moving.
"...and I want to do this." he said, almost in a whisper. An intake of breath. She was using her byakugan, his face was lost in chakra tangles. But she heard him.
There was no reason that she should have understood then. She'd spent the entire night weeping, buried too far under her damp teary numbness and the aching hole in her middle. She hadn't noticed that he had decided. And he'd done it without.. without anything from her. She'd just sat there and cried. No reassurance. She blinked at him. "You only have.. your confidence.." she whispered. "..right, Sasuke-kun? I haven't told you..."
He paused, easily, on his flexed bare feet. He turned and his dark eyes were almost soft. Patient, as they had been before. And she could see those traces of worry in him. The way she felt now, behind him. Emptied out, inside. Needing something. Being just too numb, too soaked-through with tears to even ask for it.
"I'm sorry." she said, soggily, weeping again. ".. you can stay.. I want you to stay. I want you." The words slipped on the tears. She was springing leaks everywhere. She couldn't feel if they were right or not. Whether this was exactly what he needed, or not. He just needed something. She tried.. She wiped at her wet cheeks with a handful of damp tissue.
She was sure she'd done it wrong, somehow. But there was no one else to do it for her.
She wasn't looking at him. It took so much effort to just force herself to speak, as if she had this authority. She heard Sasuke shift his weight, the floorboards springing back slightly in the sudden silence.
"But your father.. and mine."
"I don't care what my father would say! He was wrong!"
It hurt her throat to shout like that. Her voice was raw and hoarse with hours of crying.
"I don't care." she mumbled, daubing at her sore, wet nose. "I don't care what the family says... stay here. You're our blood... there must be something I can do.." she was too busy wiping her eyes. She wasn't looking at him. She didn't hear him move at all...
Until ...he was right beside her, his bent knees sliding slightly on the polished floor. His arms around her so tightly she couldn't breathe. He didn't say anything. She avoided his injured arm, tried to get her arms around his waist, but he had her so tight, she couldn't move. She could feel the quiver of his breath. Her heartbeat. His, pressing in on it.
"I can't go back." he whispered, close and warm.
"Then stay here." she mumbled gracelessly, her voice thick and worn out. "I.. I want you to stay. We'll take care of you.. too." She buried her face in the warm crush of his shoulder, the hollow of his neck. She could feel the heat of the burn, the thwarted tendrils of black chakra fading out, running in circles, fading away under his skin.
She wasn't sure if she should expect an answer. She was so tired. There was just nothing left to her, just a slip of a shadow, a little fading chakra ghost, a few tiny knots, unraveling. She didn't even seem to have any tears left. She wanted him to stay. She knew that she couldn't really hope for that.
"...I want you, too.. Hinata." he whispered.
And there was suddenly nothing else she could think of. He overwhelmed her senses. She thought it would just break her completely if she saw the look in his eyes as he said that. It would be too much, far too much. She just curled herself tightly into his chest, the warm skin of his neck. All the vital, strong chakra signals of his body. The person he was, hidden. But slowly coming into focus. The mystery of that...
He carried her upstairs, to the single paper room that marked the cottage's facade. He pulled back the screens, and the curtains, and she watched as he cast precise jutsus, exhaling waves of heat over the window. The frost evaporated, flowing like water, like receding tides.
"It isn't going to be easy." she whispered. "My family is going to be very angry. But.. I'll fight them."
"Because it's right." he said, watching her carefully. "...right? Not because.."
"No ...for you." she said, hunching her shoulders in embarrassment. "I want to do this for you!"
He kissed her then. A real kiss, deep and soft, gentle. His tongue swiping over hers. Even though she was red-nosed and her eyes were wet and swollen. And he was exhausted, bloodshot from the vodka, deep circles forming under his dark eyes. The both were tired, hurting, defeated. He held her so tightly that she could barely breathe, like he didn't want to let her go for an instant. She was still crying. She was getting him wet with her tears, even as he wiped them away. As she leaned up and reached for him, pulling him down into another kiss. His hand bleeding, his blood smearing on her cheek. Both of them must have looked horrible. It was the most romantic thing she could have ever imagined.
"Of course I'll stay." he said, a bit gruffly. "I have to. Someone has to protect you from your fucking family, Hinata. You're too nice. I'm going to teach you how to not be nice to people who don't deserve it-"
And the words died in his throat. He fell silent. He had to. She was kissing him, just as he'd kissed her. Like she didn't, and wouldn't, let go. Not for her family. Not for an instant.
She didn't, as he nudged her, and she opened her swollen eyes. He held her tucked under his chin, tightly cradled in his arms. He'd pulled open the drapes, melted away the frost. The storm had broken into a deep blue dawn over the line of snowy evergreens outside. There was a sudden change of light. A magical stillness of silence, sealing the promise.
The sun was rising fiery pink over a glittering blue world of ice.
"I can't be what you deserve, though." he said, tiredly.
She just held him tighter, locking one hand around her wrist, squeezing him hard. "I think I deserve you." she whispered, muffled against his shoulder. "And you deserve me."
He almost laughed. "It sounds like a threat... doesn't it?" He took her hand, pressed it to the hot angry tangle in his burnt shoulder. "Here's another." His fingers interlaced with hers, pressing her palm deep against the remains of the seal.
"I'm not leaving you." he said. "It's decided."