family affair

eighteen:

off track

The dream dissolved into a nightmare by morning, when Sasuke thrashed in his sleep.

He saw masks sneak into the Uchiha compound from the darkness outside, their movements calculated and sharp. The masks were large and exaggerated, painted with brash red paint that was still wet––dripping like blood. They wore all black cloth of a spy, and their movements were sure as they broke through the glass door of the entrance. Glass shattered, and then there was no sound until one of them pulled a machine gun from the darkness of their body and released a string of bullets into the room.

They crawled through the compound like spiders, their arms and legs extending, the white of their masks growing until they covered their entire bodies, dripping blood of the Uchihas that had fallen. Sasuke lay flat on his soccer field, his heart a hummingbird inside of him, as a mask grew and grew until it detached from one of the assailants and attached itself to his face.

He could not get it off.

When he woke, Hinata was holding one of his hands away from his face in a tight grip he had never felt from her before. She was staring at him, her silvery eyes wide in the dim of her bedroom. Behind them, the morning stood still and gray, and Sasuke could feel the cold sneaking in.

"Sorry," he apologized without knowing why, blinking as more things came into focus. He realized his chest was heaving. Hinata's worried face hovered in front of him, and he processed the feeling of her warm body and the cold sheets that surrounded him there. He looked around the bedroom: its corners were dark in the dreary morning. The silence of everything surrounded him as he remembered the masks and how they had forced themselves around his body.

Hinata said nothing, just released his hand. She leaned over and grabbed a cup of water, which she wordlessly insisted he drink from. "You started scratching your face," she said quietly, concern evident in her tone.

"I had a nightmare," he admitted, though he knew that much was obvious already. He wasn't prepared for the fear that he still felt sitting around his shoulders, making speaking difficult. He hadn't felt this way in years. Sasuke felt the need to apologize again, but didn't. He tucked his shame inside of himself. This was the second time Hinata had woken him from one of his dreams.

They were getting worse. He felt that something bad was going to happen.

The day they had spent in bliss fell away slowly, even as he wrapped an arm around Hinata's bare torso, and pulled her against his body. She reached an arm out and played with his hair, their eyes meeting when she asked, "What was it about?"

Sasuke hid his frown. He could not tell her, though part of him wanted to. It was too convoluted for her to know. Hinata must've sensed this, and her hand paused at his forehead, "You don't...you don't have to t-tell me, you know?"

He looked down at her. Her hair was like a blanket around her shoulders, spilling in long streaks so black that it looked indigo in the dim light of the outside. Her face was pink but tinged in concern, and her lips downturned just slightly. Her eyes held a trust that Sasuke could not have imagined he'd be on the receiving end of. She was so beautiful.

And he felt undeserving. For a bright, startling moment, he wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to tell her that he was a spy, sent to steal the Byakugan file from the Hyugas. He wanted to tell her about his grudge against the Hyuga, and how for years he thought them responsible for the death of his people. He wanted to tell her about the fear that was growing slowly but surely inside of him. The fear that he was going to die.

Instead, he reached an arm up to stretch, then wrapped it around her shoulders, rolling them over, so that she was on her back. It was a distraction, and it worked, at least he thought it did when she turned even pinker than before.

But she didn't distract easily, it seemed, not about this. "I'm worried about you."

"Don't be," Sasuke said, his voice casual, stern. "It's the same nightmare I have all the time. About the massacre."

"I see," she said. She turned a perplexing look at him like she didn't fully believe what he was saying. Like she knew that there was more he was not saying. But she buried that away as she sat up and rolled her shoulders. She placed a hand on his neck and said, "Well. I k-know something that helps me when I have an episode. I promised you a tattoo, right?"

-:-

Sasuke wanted the ravens on his back, and big.

Hinata could not deny the sensual aspect of tattooing a lover, even if she was doing so to distract him from the pain he was allowing her to witness. Still, she believed firmly in the transferring of pain to another source, and tattoos were great outlets for her.

His back muscles rippled subtly as Hinata placed the stencil, the two ravens sitting together at his lower back, the one flying away at his mid back. He'd wanted more details, trees and clouds and dark inking––that sort of thing that made it become a multi-session tattoo. Neither of them minded this.

Hinata pinned back her hair and put on her gloves, delighting in the way giving a tattoo made intimacy apparent. He laid on his stomach while Hinata prepared the needle, his dark gaze following her as she wandered around the studio. She even played music this time, soft and gentle indie tunes that surrounded them with melodic guitar. She couldn't stop his pain, but at least she could momentarily transfer it.

She started at the lowest raven, the one to the right that was sitting on the branch, and pressed the machine into his skin. She rode the line up, feeling his tensing skin as his back took the ink. She remembered when she did his first tattoo, and how nice it felt to tattoo him.

"I think just the outline for today," she said, tipping the needle into the ink as she accessed the canvas of his back. "Maybe two sessions? Three if you tap out."

Sasuke snorted. "I wouldn't tap out."

Hinata laughed, "Never." she said.

It took her about 35 minutes to ink in the first raven, gently putting in strokes of the feature, dotting white into its eye, and following the line to its talons. They spent this time in relative silence, her leaning over his body and feeling it react to her movements, and him breathing deeply through the pain. At one point, he even admitted, "The back is a bitch"

"Right on your spine," Hinata agreed. "When my friend did my tattoo I basically cried the whole time."

"I could see that," Sasuke teased.

Hinata rolled her eyes, though he couldn't see her face. "This isn't as intense as your whole torso, I don't think."

"Touche," Sasuke agreed, then grunted a little from the pain. Hinata moved on to the second raven, its companion on the branch. "Were you transferring pain when you got it?"

"Oh, of c-course," Hinata muttered. "I invited this friend over to do it specifically. My mother's drawing, remember? It's actually pretty recent. I've had it maybe three or four years."

"What happened?"

His question was met with a brief silence. Hinata let the machine run, the noise filling the room. She used a coil machine for big projects like this, and its vibrating was loud. You had to speak loud to be heard over it. Hinata dipped the machine into the ink and watched the machine suck it up, then she dutifully stretched the skin with her left hand, and pushed the needle into the stencil of the beak, drawing an artful line to meet the bird's skull.

"It was after my relationship with Gaara," she admitted, slowly. "It was a really dark time in my life. I missed my mom a lot, then I found her sketchbook. I thought it was p-perfect."

Sasuke said nothing for a long time, but Hinata felt the energy of the room shift. He asked to take a break from the tattoo to stretch, and Hinata put the machine down, watching him rotate his arms this way and that, stretching his arms above him, his muscles moving in tandem. When he looked at her, his gaze was severe: "You never finished telling me about him."

Hinata took off her gloves. The silence in the room suddenly seemed important. She remembered the night almost six days ago, when they stood in front of her mother's shrine, and Sasuke suddenly turned pale after she told him the story about Hizashi and his request for clemency.

Something about that had triggered something, and she didn't know what. Hesitantly, Hinata recapped the story and continued where she left off. With Hizashi and his treason.

"T-there's not much more, really. Everything was...circumstantial." She said slowly, choosing her words carefully. Sasuke turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised in a way that asked really?

"After Hizashi was denied p-protection from the Uchihas," she continued again, her words stumbling from her lips in a halting rhythm. She didn't particularly enjoy remembering this. The pivot to this telling was unexpected, and it sent shivers up her spine. "He began to drink heavily. I think that the affair with my mother continued for a few years until..."

"Until she passed away," Sasuke finished for her, his tone gentle, but he seemed impatient somehow. Sasuke watched the lines of his new tattoo shine in the light. His skin was red where the needle had gone in. "That much I understand...but what does that have to do with Suna?"

"Well," Hinata pursed her lips. "Hizashi...began to become unhinged after t-that. He started reacting violently to things, and d-drank into the night. W-while all that came to a head, I started dating Gaara."

Sasuke was quiet, waiting for her to go on.

"We d-dated for a while, a couple of years, maybe. The first year and a half were wonderful..." she trailed off, wincing, then she looked away when she noticed Sasuke's stare hardening, his hands fisting on top of the massage table. "The second part...well. He became a-angry with me. Some p-part of him thought that...hurting me would bring back his uncle. His uncle that my uncle killed."

She played with the deflated glove that she rested on her tattoo tray idly, "Hizashi was easily provoked at this stage in life, a-and he murdered Suna Baki had a drive bar––it w-was an accident, I think. The f-fight was never meant to go so far, but a h-hurting man sometimes does not know his strength. I think G-Gaara was like that, too."

"Don't make excuses for him," Sasuke's voice was pitched a deep tember, his anger a great sitting thing in the middle of the room. Hinata smiled sadly and looked away.

"Hizashi went away for it, then died in prison after Hidan killed him. Gaara t-took his anger out on me, then we b-broke up. That's the end of the story." She looked at him plainly, and it was a look that said I don't know what you're getting out of this.

But Sasuke's eyes looked focused, and he was staring at a wall, a frown pulling his features down. Wordlessly, he got back onto his stomach and Hinata put back on her gloves. She continued the tattoo, letting the sound of the machine fill the room again.

Sasuke turned his head to the side to look at her, his dark gaze eclipsing hers. She had to pause tattooing, for fear that she would fall into the look and be swept away. "Thank you for telling me," he said, then paused for a long moment. He closed his eyes, then opened them before he said, "I don't think you should go to that Boys Club meeting you told me about. I don't have a good feeling about it."

Hinata blew air out of her mouth. "I don't either."

But if she had to do it to help her family, she would.

-:-

A few days later the Estate was buzzing. Shenji had woken up.

Hinata was eating lunch with Kiba when she heard the news, sitting in the family room with some reality TV show he and Hanabi liked playing. Hanabi left to grab something from her room, when Shikamaru came in, looking solemn. He told them the news. Hinata was to go see Shenji first and see about his discharge. It had been almost three full weeks since the attack, and already so much had changed.

Kiba had been released from jail after the first three days, posting bail easily with help from the Syndicate. He'd spent the better part of the last week talking to his lawyer. His trial was coming up soon, and Hiashi didn't want anyone else going away. Especially not anywhere an Akatsuki member was placed.

Kiba didn't seem concerned. He chewed on his chicken wings, his eyebrows drawn as if deep in thought about something. He looked at Hinata as she went to stand, asking: "Are you with the Uchiha or somethin'?"

She turned pink, no chance to hide. "Um...um, w-why do you ask?"

"That wasn't an answer," he looked at her plainly, wiping the side of his mouth with his thumb. "I'm not judging, I'm just asking. I just want you to be careful, okay?"

"Sure, yeah, okay..." Hinata said, frowning. She was always careful. She was more careful than Kiba ever was. She continued to gather her things, noticing a message half composed to said Uchiha: Hey-–Shenji's awake !, a follow-up to Sasuke's question about if she was free that evening, left still unanswered. Hinata pressed send, then turned back to Kiba, a question in her gaze. "Why do you...why do you distrust them s-so much if you're the o-one who brought them here?"

"This sounds like a trick question," Kiba said, sucking the buffalo sauce from his thumb. He made a bunch of wet sounds.

"I h-have no reason to trick you," she said. "I really want to know."

Kiba paused all of his gluttonous actions––for the better part of the week he gwaffled everything down like he had never eaten before, citing a 72-hour stay in jail as reason enough to eat all he wanted––and paled considerably. "I just don't trust them, okay? I um..."

Hinata wordlessly raised an eyebrow as Kiba sputtered. Her phone vibrated in her hands, Sasuke: That's great news. Is your father letting anyone see him?

Just me right now, She replied back, frowning. But we can go together soon, I think.

Kibra watched her do this and shook his head again. "I lost a bet."

"What?" Hinata's head snapped up like she had been dragged from a trance. She pocketed the phone.

"I lost a bet," Kiba was whispering now. He scratched his triangle tattoos self-consciously. "to some really shady guys. I'm not sure what they were into but––I owed them a lot of money."

"Kiba––you know you c-could have g-gone to Father if––"

"I couldn't have, Hinata. You don't know the fucking situation," his tone was low, but still Hinata jumped in surprise. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she ignored it. "It was a lot of money, alright? It was getting bad for me."

Hinata struggled to understand. "S-so what then? Instead of paying the money you owed, you c-chose to vouch for Sasuke instead?"

Kiba said nothing, and his silence was enough. Hinata felt like her forehead was splitting open, "So...y-you're telling me that someone put you up to vouching for an Uchiha, and now...n-now you're telling me to be careful?"

Kiba said, "I just want you to be safe, that's all."

"Does my father know about this?"

"Of course not, Hinata," now Kiba was wearing puppy-dog eyes, which usually worked on Hinata, but instead his pitiful gaze was met with ire. "He'd...he'd fucking kill me."

"Or w-worse," flame slipped off her tongue. She felt fury and confusion become twins inside of her. "Goddammit Kiba," she muttered without restraint or any awareness of herself. She felt like she wanted to hit something, but that want overwhelmed her so much that she felt tears dot the corners of her eyes instead. She had no idea what any of this was supposed to mean. She had no idea what she was meant to do with this information.

She walked away shaking her head, her headache a full-fledged movement across her temporal lobe, her eyes blurring as she let the door shut behind her. Her phone vibrated again. The cracks began to show.

-:-

"Hey Hinata," Shenji's voice had a friendly but exhausted lift to it when Hinata knocked on the door and eased it open. His voice was scratchy from the breathing tube. He was surrounded, still, by flowers, since they had replaced the dozens every week of his stay. He looked around her as if he was wondering where everyone else was, and seemed disappointed that it was just her.

"Hey," she said gently. In her arms she held a little brown teddy bear and two cup ramens in a basket, which she held out to him and he accepted with slow-moving arms. She watched him struggle to sit up for a moment, until she appeared on his other side to help him up. His blonde hair had lost some of its shine, but had grown since the shooting. "How are you f-feeling?"

"Terrible," he said. "Like I got shot a buncha times in the chest. Ooooh, cup ramen," his eyes lit up. "I don't even know if I can eat real food yet," unabashed, he lifted the edge of his hospital gown top to expose the feeding tube. He explained that his doctor would remove it that afternoon and he'd start with a liquid diet. He pouted.

"Maybe you can h-have the broth?" Hinata suggested kindly, feeling a bit stupid for bringing it––two cups at that.

"It'll probably just taste like salt. The worthy broth has pork in it," he rasped. "How's everything, though? The Estate and all that."

Hinata thought about the strange circumstances that brought Shenji and Sasuke into her life. Kiba seemed convinced they were evil, and Hinata could see why. With his life on the line, of course he would vouch for two men he did not know. But on whose behalf? That was the scary part.

Right now, Shenji looked harmless. Bandaged and connected to multiple long tubes, he could barely move. His limbs seemed heavy as he tried to grab the teddy bear and sit it on his lap. A slow smile crossed his face as Hinata settled into the chair beside him. He said something about being happy to be alive.

Hinata told him about the coming and goings of the Estate and the Syndicate at large, leaving out some complexities that would very well go over his head since he'd been out of the loop for so long. A doctor came in halfway through and introduced herself. She explained Shenji's treatment options and told Hinata that they would keep him for a few more nights just to run some tests. If all looked good, Shenji could be out in three days with a structured schedule for physical therapy. They would take the feeding tube out after visiting hours ended.

"And how's my boy?" Shenji drawled.

"Who?"

"Sasuke! Is he doing alright?"

"Oh," Hinata blushed lightly, and it was not unnoticed by Shenji. "He's...he's doing okay. He was sick recently, but he's better now." She thought of the ravens she had inked into his skin the night before and how they seemed to wink at her when he moved his arms. Her work looked beautiful on his body. Hinata could feel herself getting lost, so she steered the conversation back and cleared her throat. "How do you two know each other, again?"

"School?" Shenji said it like a question, but he was more confused about the abrupt question than the origins of his relationship with Sasuke. His voice was still halted––scratchy. "High school, actually, and we've been friends ever since. Why?"

"I-I was just wondering," Hinata said. She looked away, lowering her eyes in a shy sort of gesture while she thought of something else to say; a way to bridge her questions. "Lately I've j-just been...really grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life. For years there weren't m-many people my age around, so it feels sort of––sort of magical."

"Oh," Shenji nodded appreciatively. "I could see that. Why not?"

"I had a pretty secluded childhood," Hinata said, which was the truth. "W-we Hyuga's don't like outsiders. T-that's why I was kinda curious...how did y-you guys meet Kiba?"

Finally, the question she really wanted to ask was out in the open. She made her gaze open, curious, as she looked at him in his hospital bed. He looked weak, exhausted, and somewhat depressed, so she almost felt bad for putting him on the spot. But she needed to know. She needed to figure out what the hell Kiba was talking about.

"Um," Shenji's face suddenly went red, and he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "We met at an off-track-betting joint a while back. It also had a strip club in the basement."

"Oh," Hinata turned red, too, at the mention of this strip club, if not to pretend like this answer had some effect other than scrutiny. It matched up with what Kiba had said, though Kiba had not said that Shenji and Sasuke were the "really shady guys" he'd met. It was clear that Hinata was getting nowhere with this line of questioning, unable to verify or reject any claims. She didn't have good enough questions.

It was also clear to her that the frantic beating in her chest was a symptom of something else entirely. She didn't want there to be any suggestion that Uchiha Sasuke's intentions were nefarious. She didn't want what Kiba said to be true.

She wasn't sure how she would deal with that reality. She had a feeling that she was dealing with it already.

-:-

The quiet of his apartment was chilling.

Sasuke checked his various security functions, ensuring that no one had entered his room during his extended, and unexpected time away.

Everything looked normal: copacetic. His desk was still clear of all worldly possessions, his bed was still dutifully made, and the yen from Itachi was still taped to the wall and left alone. Still, Sasuke checked over some security footage and fashioned a pistol around his waist. Something felt...off.

His body felt wound-tight as he undid the floorboards for his laptop. It pinged after he put in his long streams of passwords and allowed the systems to scan his retinas. There was a message encoded from Ox through their usual encrypted channel, and it told him to come to headquarters as soon as possible. Tomorrow if he could.

The message from her sent a shock through his body like he had just been showered in ice. Ox never messaged them––and if she did, it would be through the head of this mission. It would be through Sakura.

Sasuke hadn't heard from her since that day they drove around in his car. He responded to Ox in the same channel, before logging off. No, there was another place he could look for a message from Sakura, and if she hadn't messaged through normal channels it meant that things had gotten ugly.

He just hoped she was okay.