Marionette
Everyone noticed how he manipulated her, everyone but her. AU
Disclaimer: M for intercourse (trigger warning) and language. If you are uncomfortable with these themes, do not proceed.


Chapter 12


"What the hell have you been doing Uchiha?"

Nara sat in a computer chair on his right. His face engrossed in the screens before him as his fingers danced across the keys of a mechanical keyboard.

"I helped you write this site code for kicks. I didn't think you were going to turn this operation into a place where people could order goddamn black market organs. Jesus Christ," he scolded.

Sasuke clenched his jaw, his posture tense in his computer chair.

"The website took on a life of its own. I had no control over it."

His hair was in disarray, standing up wildly in all directions from the amount of times he'd ran his shaking fingers through it. He bit at his nail and glared at Nara as he worked, triggered by the man's reprimand.

Karin came between them, her hands smashing on the long table between their keyboards. Her choppy red hair flared with the motion, the lenses of her glasses reflecting the blue light from their monitors.

"As touching as this little reunion is," she looked from Sasuke to Shikamaru, "We are running out of time."

She pointed at a particular segment of Shikamaru's screen before speaking.

"There is an issue—" Shikamaru's eyes darted back and forth, reading through the lines of code at great speed, "—There," she supplied.

Sasuke turned to his own two monitors, logging in to the backend of the system and pulling up the most recent log files.

Karin walked around their desks to her own set up. The three of them sat in a triangle formation as they got to work reversing the damage to the site. For the next ten minutes, the resounding clicks and clacks of their keys was all that could be heard throughout the warehouse loft.

Suigetsu was dozing on a couch in the corner of the loft, Juugo nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, asshole!" Karin suddenly yelled.

Suigetsu jerked awake with a start. He had been steadily slumping further and further into the leather of the sofa, his arms loosely crossed.

"Get us some coffee," she demanded.

He squinted at her, then yelled, "Oyyy, Juugo!"

Juugo popped his head in through a doorway, materializing seemingly out of thin air. His stealth was one of the many skills in his repertoire that had gotten him the job with this crew.

Siugetsu motioned at the trio with his thumb, "Get them some coffee."

Juugo saluted, then melted away into the darkness.

Karin made a noise of agitation and threw a stapler in Siugetsu's direction, huffing behind her monitors. Unappreciative of the distracting commotion, Sasuke peered over his screen and silenced her with an icy glare.

"Karin."

She hunched down, then continued to work. Nara was typing away next to him, his face set in an expression of passive concentration.

"Here," Shikamaru proclaimed after a time. "You have someone who entered via this backdoor," he pointed, "and ran a Trojan script on your transaction data."

Sasuke rolled his chair over to inspect the discovery. He leaned in, his eyes darting around the display as he assessed Nara's findings.

"Who the fuck would do that?" he muttered in agitation.

Karin piped up, "...there's a signature."

Sasuke straightened, looking at her expectantly.

Nara finished the thought, "I see it. It's encrypted. Hard to say."

Sasuke wheeled back to his desk and bit his fist. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He pulled out another cigarette and lit it, tossing his lighter onto the surface of the desk with a clatter. It did not escape him that Nara was eyeing the cig in his hand with interest.

"I'm not sharing," he bit out.

Shikamaru shrugged his shoulder and kept working.

Sasuke held his cigarette between his lips to free his hands. With the square held securely by his mouth, he yelled around it to Siugetsu. He was multitasking, typing vast strings of code at a rapid fire rate. His grey eye and his black eye moved quickly from left to right on his screen.

"Sup, Boss?" Suigetsu drawled.

"Get online and log in to the master admin account. Start answering questions on the message boards."

Sasuke removed a hand from his keyboard to ash the cigarette on the ground, then put it back in his mouth, drawing smoke. His fingers once again glued themselves to the tabs on his keys.

Suigetsu groaned as he got up, "Why do I always get stuck doing the bitch work?"

"Because that's all your bitch ass is good for!" Karin belted out.

Sasuke peered at her, lip curled around his square, expression unimpressed.

"Sorry," she squeaked. She adjusted her glasses and bent her head down, immersing herself in her job once again.


Sasuke did not leave the warehouse until 2:00 p.m. the next day.

They'd worked on counteracting the attack on the site well through the morning and early afternoon. He couldn't remember when he'd last slept. He could feel the dark circles under his eyes weighing down his entire face. The eye strain from staring at lines of code for eleven hours straight had made his vision bleary.

He rubbed at an irritated eye as he fell through the front door. He'd been too exhausted to park in the garage, the prospect of having to expend his energy taking two sets of fucking stairs afterwards out of the question.

He walked past the kitchen entryway, dragging his feet towards the grand staircase.

"Sasuke."

He stopped in his tracks. Hanging his head down, he backtracked towards the kitchen.

He glanced into the large, white marbled room, noting a subtle stench of stale beer and an overflowing garbage can. There were empty liquor bottles lining the kitchen island and discarded, oily pizza boxes stacked high on one of the counters.

He pinpointed his brother sitting at the table by the bay window.

Itachi had his work phone and his personal phone in front of him, stacked on top of a sleek, closed laptop. His hand was wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee that rested on the surface of the table's white granite.

Itachi was looking at him sternly, his gaze pointed and his expression annoyed.

"I told you to stay out of trouble," he said.

Sasuke froze, eyes widening.

What was he saying? The air flew out of Sasuke's lungs. His blood turned to ice in his veins. He felt like his soul was leaving his body. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His hand grabbed nervously at the bottom of his shirt.

"The house? It's in a bad state. What happened here last night?" Itachi finished.

Oh, what the fuck?

Sasuke's jaw relaxed, willing his heartbeat to stabilize. He controlled his breathing before attempting to respond.

"Sakura—" he started unsettled, "Sakura and Naruto threw a graduation party."

"And where is Sakura now?"

"She… she wanted to go home after," he lied.

"I see."

Itachi was giving him a look like he knew he was spitting bullshit.

Sasuke was bone weary. The issues with the site had been astronomical. He felt defeated. On top of that, they hadn't been able to crack the encryption on the signature. They had no idea who executed the attack. Fuck everything.

He just wanted to smoke a joint and knock out for the next twelve hours in his room.

He missed living alone. Itachi was half annoying older brother and half parent, and it drove him insane to have to deal with him in both capacities. He hadn't answered to anyone for the past four years. Suddenly having an older adult in a house that no one save for Sakura had really occupied with him throughout his early twenties grated on his nerves.

"I'll call Ayame and her cleaning team to come a couple days early," he offered.

This is my olive branch, he thought. Take it you douchebag.

Itachi looked at him, nonplussed. He took a sip of his coffee and straightened the cuff of his sleeve.

"You do that," he began, "and then send her to me afterwards so I can straighten out any confusion regarding who is responsible for... payroll."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

He said nothing, turned his back on Itachi and left.


Sakura had not wanted her friends to see how upset she actually was on Saturday night.

She'd tried hard not to let Sasuke's abrupt disappearance at the graduation party ruin the end of her evening. The party had been fun and there had been positive vibes up until that point. She didn't want to be THAT girl— crying, drunk, dramatic and hysterical over her stupid boyfriend.

She didn't want her friends to have to take care of her or to sully their evening with her problems. She'd put on a brave front outwardly, but had texted Sasuke back-to-back about what she had witnessed in the courtyard, to no response.

"Who were those people?"

"Where did you go?"

"Are you okay?"

"Sasuke?"

Naruto had dropped her and Ino off close to 5:00 a.m. Despite her exhaustion, she'd laid awake in her bed unable to sleep, prisoner to her swirling thoughts.

"...where's Karin? ...where's Karin? ...where's Karin?" echoed around in her skull.

Her face crumpled. Why had he disappeared again? And if he was going to disappear so often, why wouldn't he at least tell her where he was going?

She hadn't left her bedroom for all of Sunday. She'd buried herself underneath her covers, her body scrunched into a ball.

As Sunday wore on and she still hadn't heard from him, her worry and sadness began to morph into something else.

Resentment. Anger. Pent up rage. It was the straw that broke the camel's back

Fuck him, she thought.

She set notifications from him to mute on her phone. She unplugged from her device, citing to herself that she'd been too dependent on it lately. It was a battle of wills to keep it out of her hands. If she didn't absolutely need it, she forced herself to leave it alone on her side table or in her bag.

As commencement week kicked off on Monday, she took it out to take pictures and coordinate meet ups across campus with her friends.

She pointedly ignored the unread messages that began piling up from Sasuke in his thread.

After Tuesday, he'd started calling. Twice a day. Then three times a day. Then four times a day.

"...where's Karin? ...where's Karin? ...where's Karin?"

She let it go to voicemail every time.


As the week of ceremonies and celebrations wrapped up, she found herself sitting with Naruto at a coffee shop near campus. They'd spent many a late night here studying throughout their tenure at the school.

She reflected on the past week. She'd walked the stage to accept her diploma, elated at the achievement. She'd gone to lunch with Ino, Shikamaru and their parents to celebrate. She'd gone to dinner with her own parents and smiled at their praise.

"How's Sasuke? her mom had asked.

"He's fine," she'd responded mechanically.

She'd hugged all the moms and dads with love and joy and sent them back out of town.

But... she couldn't take it anymore.

"Hey Naruto," she began carefully.

Naruto rounded his blue eyes in her direction.

"Didn't you have a cousin that used to come around?" she posed innocently. "What was her name?"

Naruto scratched at his chin and then took a sip of his coffee.

"Karin? Yeah. What about her?"

Sakura ran a hand through her hair, vaguely recalling the feel of Sasuke's fingers as he helped her dye it. She sipped her cold brew and continued.

"What's she been up to these days?"

Naruto thought for a minute. He looked around the coffee shop absently, his eyes briefly focused on a muffin behind the glass of the cafe's pastry display, before looking back to Sakura.

"Beats me," he shrugged his shoulders. "Why don't you ask Sasuke? I think she hangs around with him sometimes. He'd probably know better to be honest."

Sakura tensed up. Her hand clutched her drink tightly as she stared through Naruto with a look of consternation.

Naruto waved a hand in front of her face.

"Earth to Sakura-chan. Are you okay?"

Sakura remained quiet. Her heart was racing. She could feel her breath quickening.

Hung around... with Sasuke? But why?

Why was Sasuke hanging out with Naruto's female cousin? Why didn't she know about this? What… what were they doing together?

Abruptly, she stood up. Her chair made a loud screech as it pushed back with her sudden movement.

"I— I have to go," she spit out, before grabbing her phone and purse and running off.

"Wait. What? Sakura!"

She was gone, the shop door already shutting behind her. The ice in her abandoned drink melted as it sat forgotten on the table.


It had been over a week since the fiasco at the warehouse. Sakura's graduation had come and gone. But as it were, Sakura was not answering her phone. She was not answering his texts. He distinctly remembered her demanding lunch from him to celebrate. Instead, she'd proceeded to fall off the face of the earth.

Sasuke was standing in the kitchen, staring at his phone with such intensity he was surprised it didn't combust.

He dropped it on the island counter and walked to the fridge, pulling open the door. Eyeing the contents, he snatched at a container of organic cherry tomatoes. Taking it back to the island, he fumbled with the top in annoyance until he got it open.

Half the tomatoes rolled out over the glossy white marble, a couple dropping onto the matching marble floor.

He groaned and let the mess be, shoveling a handful into his mouth.

"What's going on little brother?"

Great.

He looked up at Itachi with disdain. He was chewing his tomatoes with such vigor that he felt a vein in his neck protruding. Itachi shook his head at him and approached the counter, picking one off and eating it as well.

"Hands off! Those are mine," he fumed.

"Stop throwing a tantrum," his brother sighed out.

Itachi walked to the fridge to grab himself a bottle of water and then returned to sit at a bar stool across from him.

"Why are you still here?" Sasuke questioned.

Itachi looked at him for longer than necessary before replying, "My work assignment is... taking longer than anticipated. I will be here for the foreseeable future."

Sasuke glared at him in silence. He was lying.

Itachi stared back and then cracked the seal of his bottled water. Switching gears, he asked, "Where is Sakura?"

"What do you care?" Sasuke shot back.

Sasuke wiped his hands on the black cloth of his crisp, gold zippered hoodie, peeking down at his white shirt underneath to make sure he hadn't inadvertently dirtied it with tomato.

"She has not been around in over a week," Itachi floated cautiously.

Sasuke looked at him sullenly. Fuck Itachi and his button up dress shirts, and his nice pants, and his nice shoes, and his stupid hair.

His brother continued, "She makes you happy doesn't she? If you are happy, I am happy."

Sasuke felt like he was pouting now. He tried with difficulty to wipe the emotion off of his face.

"She hasn't been answering," he said quietly.

Itachi scoffed here, taking a sip of his water.

"Has that stopped you before? Go check on her."

Sasuke looked at his brother, a face so identical to his own, and lingered on his side of the counter. His gaze fell to the haphazard tomatoes with indecision.

"I'll clean up your mess. Get out of here."

And so he left.


Sasuke parked his car near Sakura's building around 5:00 p.m. He walked around back, climbed up the fire escape with ease and approached her window. The gauzy curtains were drawn. The window was locked.

"Shit."

He rapped on the glass with his knuckles. No movement. He groaned. He did not want to deal with Yamanaka or see Nara again any time soon.

He climbed back down and went around front. Swallowing down his aggravation, he knocked on the front door.

He waited. And waited. Finally, Nara opened up.

"Yo. You're lucky Ino isn't here," he opened the door wider, gesturing at him to come inside.

That bitch got trashed at my house, Sasuke thought to himself. The least she could do was fuck off.

He looked aloofly at the slightly shorter man as he stepped through the threshold. Nara was in his house clothes, his ponytail messy. Clearly, he'd been disturbed from a nap. Inwardly, Sasuke rolled his eyes at this. The guy was such a waste of space.

He slid his hand into the pocket of his black jeans and asked if Sakura was home.

Nara looked him up and down before nodding.

As Sasuke walked to her closed door, Shikamaru asked, "Everything straight now?"

He was asking about the site, Sasuke knew. Sasuke turned back around.

"For now."

Pained, like teeth were being pulled from his mouth without anesthesia, he added, "Thanks. For... your help."

Nara gave him a disgusted look as he walked past him towards his room.

"Don't ask for it again."

Then he slammed the door shut.

Piece of shit.

Sasuke let out a growl and grabbed at the knob of Sakura's door, letting himself in with no discretion.

She yelped from her spot on the floor at her mirror, looking at him in surprise through the reflection.

She was in a cute bra and tight short shorts, applying makeup. Her face contorted into a look of displeasure at the sight of him. He shut the door and leaned against it.

"What are you doing here?" she asked curtly.

He stared at the back of her head. He noticed that her hair had now settled and faded back to a dusty, light pink. She had it up in a loose bun, some strands escaping down to her slim neck.

She was giving him a mean glare in the mirror as she waited for him to respond, her green eyes cold.

"You weren't answering. So..."

"So, what?" she countered.

"So..." he frowned. I was worried about you.

Why was she being such a bitch?

He moved to sit on her bed.

He stretched his long legs in front of him as he sat down, pointing his black and white sneaker clad feet before putting them flat on the ground. He rested his palms behind himself, continuing to stare at her.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed the graduation cap and tassel resting on her desk alongside a vase of fresh flowers.

Sakura released a sound of vexation. He was so stifling. His presence was like a giant black cloud of doom to her in that moment. She tried to draw her eyeliner on her top lid, but her hand shook and the line got too thick.

"Ugh!"

She dropped the pencil and grabbed a cotton swab from the cosmetics bin in front of her.

Sasuke cocked his head to the side, his unruly hair shifting into his eyes with the motion.

"What are you getting ready for?" he questioned.

She wet the Q-tip with her tongue, an action he aptly observed from his angle, and then she lifted it to her eye to correct her mistake.

"I'm going out," she said tartly.

"Going out where?" he asked.

"...just out," she pursed.

Perfect. She had fixed the liner. Though, now she was convinced she looked a little more like a hooker than what she was actually going for, but whatever.

"With who?" he continued.

She turned around to finally look at him. She was annoyed at his nonchalance. Annoyed at his boldness, thinking he could just show up at her house when she was clearly very angry with him.

"A friend from class."

He lifted his eyebrow. This conversation was going nowhere.

"You don't know him," she added.

There. She saw him stiffen before she turned back to the mirror.

His hands bunched into the sheets of her bed in anger as he attempted to control his breathing. She was doing this on purpose. She was acting this way on purpose. But why?

He remained silent as she got up to go look through her closet. She sifted through the garments on the hangers. Each piece she paused at was more scandalous in nature than the last.

What the fuck?

She settled on a black dress that he could really only describe as a piece of cloth. As she pulled it out, he shot up from her bed, strode over to her and tore the hanger from her hand in frustration. He tossed the dress to the ground.

"What are you doing?" he seethed.

She glared up at him. Her heavy eye make up made her stupid green eyes sparkle, but he ignored it.

"Why are you hanging out with Naruto's cousin?" she burst out.

Sasuke's breath caught. She had heard something at the party. He knew it. Fuck.

He put his hands on her bare shoulders and looked her in the eyes. She could see the closeted panic behind his gaze and her suspicions were further ignited.

"It's—it's not like that," he started.

She shoved his hands away.

"Then tell me Sasuke, what's it like?"

She put her hands on her hips in outrage and waited for him to formulate a response. When he couldn't, she scoffed at him and tore her shorts off in frustration. She reached down for her slutty dress, clearly thinking she was going to put it on and leave the house to meet up with...

You don't know him.

He smacked the dress out of her hand and her mouth dropped in shock.

"Fuck off Sasuke! You don't seem to have a good explanation, so I think we're done here."

She turned her back on him, maybe attempting to open the door to kick him out, he wasn't sure, but he didn't give her enough time to allow any such thing.

He grabbed her arm and whipped her back around to face him.

Livid, she lifted her free hand. She swung it back to smack him across the face, but he grabbed that arm too.

Holding her wrists tightly he brought his face down to hers and aggressively said, "There is no one else but you."

And then he was devouring her. Moving his lips against hers with so much pent up frustration that her brain short circuited. She tried to yank her wrists out of his hands but was not successful. In a daze she tried one more tug before succumbing to the kiss. They were at war with their mouths. A clash of teeth and tongue and lips.

She could feel his anger radiating off his body. Good, she thought. Now he knows how she felt about him hanging out with another woman!

He tore his mouth off of hers and flipped her around so that her back was against his clothed chest.

He was breathing hard and so was she. He paused for a deliberate moment and then took both of her arms and crossed them behind her back.

Her eyes widened in surprise, "Sasuke. Wh-what?"

"Shut up," he bit out. He pulled her down to the floor and forced her to lie on the ground, flat on her stomach.

"Just shut up, Sakura."

He was keeping her hands held behind her back with one hand, and fumbling around for something with the other. She felt his knee replacing his hand to pin her down, and turned her head over her shoulder to see what he was doing. She caught him wringing the black dress into a semblance of a rope. Her eyes widened further.

"Seriously, what the hell are you doing?! You can't—you can't solve every problem with sex Sasuke."

He glared at her from his vantage point and then reached down to tie her hands with the dress.

She let out a defeated sigh and rested her cheek on the hardwood, listening to the rustle of his clothes as he removed every article of what he was wearing from his body.

He pulled her panties down and off of her and then she felt his hands come to rest on each side of her, his arms caging her in on the ground.

And then he was entering her. Holding his top half up from her and pumping in and out. She let out a strangled moan.

His breath was erratic, the force of him overwhelming. The sound of their skin making contact penetrated the room and she panted quietly as he filled her.

Then abruptly, he stopped. He held himself unmoving inside of her. She clenched herself around him in an attempt to get him moving again, but when he remained still, she twisted her head to look at him once more.

"Why are you stopping?!" she cried out, frustrated.

He suddenly seemed spaced and disoriented. Like he'd forgotten what he was doing and who he was doing it with.

"Sasuke?" she asked, a tinge of worry involuntarily blanketing her tone.

He looked down at her, his mismatched eyes coming back into focus. Then he untied her hands and let her move her arms into a more comfortable position near her head, before dropping his full weight over her.

He picked up his thrusts again and she let out a sigh. The side of his face was close to hers now, his large hands hovering over her petite ones. She grasped onto them, lacing their fingers. She was still on her stomach, his chest moving along her back as he fucked her into the floor.

"I'm sorry."

She felt him huff the apology into her ear, so quietly she almost thought she imagined it.

He removed one of his hands from hers and slid it slowly down the side of her, feeling her curves. He slipped it underneath her stomach, then lower, over her center.

She gasped loudly as he worked her from both sides. Her back arched. The tips of her toes fluttered at his ankles. Her hand held onto his tightly, and then she came intensely around him, locked in his oppressive embrace.


TBC...