Forbidden

by illCat

Wanting something you couldn't have was one thing. Indulging in it though… Taboo Relationship AU

2. Forbidden Part II

Forbidden
Wanting something you couldn't have was one thing. Indulging in it though… Taboo Relationship AU

Disclaimer: M for multiple scenes of very descriptive intercourse (there is like a lot of smut), tons of angst, adult themes, language, scandalous behavior and minor mentions of graphic violence. This is a dark/heavy/angsty romance, centered around a forbidden/taboo AU relationship. This premise may make some individuals uncomfortable.

If you are uneasy with the idea of a taboo pairing, or are under 18 and not mature enough to read this content, please DO NOT PROCEED.

Please keep the comments and reviews a safe space for respectful discussion.

---

Forbidden | Part II

---

"Shit. It's raining."

Sakura glances up at Naruto from where she's seated, on the floor.

"Yeah? You think?" she mocks.

The pelting of the droplets had been pounding into the windows of their apartment for the last hour.

Naruto turns from where he's standing at the window, to look at her. She was sewing the button back onto a pair of his pants for him.

One of her legs is stretched out in front of her, the other tucked in. She is in thin, black joggers. The light fabric airy and comfortable against her skin.

"How did you say this ripped off again?" she questions.

Naruto adjusts his orange t-shirt, then rubs at the back of his neck bashfully.

"Heh, not telling," he says.

Sakura pushes her sewing needle through the buttonhole and the fabric, then criss-crosses her stitch before looking up at him again.

"Uh, huh," she says, smartly.

Both of them jump slightly, when the front door bangs open with no warning.

Sakura's mouth drops open, at the sight of her brother, drenched from head to toe in water.

He gives both of them a murderous glare, before slamming the door shut angrily.

His hair wet, looks longer than normal and his shirt and his pants and his shoes are soaked through.

He drops his sopping bag off his back to the ground, something inside of it making an ominous metal clank as it hits the wood of the floor.

Sakura's hands are frozen as she stares at his dripping form. One hand gripping the needle and taut string she'd been working with and the other hand gripping the fabric of Naruto's pants.

She purses her lips, then decides against speaking to Sasuke right now.

He's clearly in a bad mood.

Naruto however, is not as perceptive.

"You look like a soggy hot dog bun," he says.

Sakura's eyes widen and she chokes down an involuntary laugh.

Oh, no, she thinks, as she quickly looks back down to her task. He's gonna blow.

Sasuke's jaw clenches and he kicks off his shoes, one of them bashing into the wall with the force of the removal. A puddle of water oozes out of the other.

Naruto is grinning at him from his spot near the window and Sakura is purposefully looking away. Both of these things piss Sasuke off even more.

"Didn't have an umbrella?" Naruto continues.

Sakura shushes him.

Naruto lifts his shoulders at her in response.

"What? Isn't he usually on top of shit like that?"

From the clench of his jaw, Sakura can tell that Sasuke is having trouble controlling himself. He wants to say something offensive in rebuttal, but his mood is so mangled that he says nothing.

He stomps past them, his steps squelchy and wet from the dampness of his socks. Pausing in front of his bedroom, he shakes his head, thinking better of it, and disappears into he and Sakura's bathroom instead. Rather than outright slamming another door, he closes this one loudly.

Sakura sighs audibly, then looks at Naruto sternly.

"Don't goad him when he's already mad," she scolds.

Naruto trudges over to the couch and drops himself onto it heavily.

"I can't help it. It's fun," he says.

They both glance up, at the sudden sound of glass shattering and a frustrated shout of, "FUCK!"

Throwing Naruto's pants aside, Sakura gets up.

"Those are good, just cut the string off," she says, distractedly.

She walks to the bathroom door quickly and knocks lightly. Not waiting for an answer, she opens the door and sticks her head inside.

Sasuke's head snaps up to glare at her, unhappily.

His wet shirt is half off his body, one arm in and one arm out.

The lightbulb cover of one of the overhead lights above the sink, is broken near his bare feet, on the ground.

In his haste to tear the wet clothes off his body, his long arm had bashed into the ceramic, knocking it off.

"What's wrong with you?" Sakura questions, quietly. "Wait there. Don't move."

Going into his room, she drops to her knees and digs around under his bed for a pair of slides. When she comes back out, she notices Naruto getting up from the couch, his mended pants in his grip.

Walking past her, he mumbles something about taking a nap, then disappears into his room.

Sakura stops at the hall closet for a towel, before she approaches the bathroom again, Sasuke's house shoes in her grip.

His expression is sullen and he has remained in place, his dripping shirt still half on his upper body.

"Put these on and just come out of there," she says. "I'll clean up the glass later."

Sasuke rubs at his forehead in agitation, then reaches for the shoes she's extending, grabbing them from her and slipping them on carefully.

He looks up at her afterwards.

Now what?

Sakura takes one cautious step into the dangerous, shard filled area and grabs at his hand, so he steps forward.

Leading him to his room, she softly shuts the door. Tossing the towel to his bed, she turns to him and helps him pull his shirt off properly. Then his pants. Then his boxers.

He just stands there, letting her handle it. He's too annoyed to do or say anything at this point. His head is leaned back, and he's looking down at her with hooded eyes while she undresses him. Sakura's hands trail along his skin while she's removing his clothing and he welcomes her warm touch. He's cold and uncomfortable from being caught in the downpour.

He had been wanting to take a hot shower, before he'd accidentally punched shards of glass all over their bathroom instead.

Dropping his wet clothes into a pile on the ground, Sakura then reaches for the towel she's brought him and hands it to him.

He scowls at it, then takes it from her, rubbing at his drenched hair sloppily. Then he drops that on the clothes pile too.

They stare at each other, Sakura analyzing his pissed off features with a slight air of trepidation.

His hand comes to rest on the side of her body, his fingers cold against her bare skin. She'd been wearing a black sports bra with her joggers, the humidity in the house being a factor in her state of undress.

Leaning down, he gives her a lingering kiss at the edge of her mouth. Shutting her eyes, Sakura leans into it, her hand coming up to rest gently against his chest. Then he lets go of her and steps away, turning his back on her. To climb into his bed.

Curling into a ball, he pulls his covers over himself and disappears from sight. Now a mound of a body, beneath a blanket.

Sakura rolls her eyes at his behavior, then bends down to grab at the pile of wet laundry on the ground.

Giving his form one last look, she exits his room.

---

Sakura wakes up on her back a couple days later, to Sasuke's arm thrown over her. His hand is wrapped around the skin underneath her bra cup, at her ribs.

He's on his side, facing her. She looks at him from the corner of her eye, then looks towards her door.

It's shut and presumably locked.

She's not sure when he came in here. She had fallen asleep alone.

She shifts minutely, but his arm is heavy over her body.

The more she focuses on his hand gripping her skin, the more she starts to squirm.

She'd gone to bed in her bra and underwear, the warm weather after the storm earlier in the week, making her overheat.

Sasuke is similarly in a state of undress. His skin sticky as he is only in his boxers.

She shoves at his arm, waking him up. Lifting his head, he looks at her groggily.

His eyebrows draw together. He'd been comfortable and in the middle of a pleasant dream.

Pleasant dreams are rare for him.

"I'm hot," Sakura complains. "When'd you get in here?"

And why are you being a hypocrite, kicking me out of your room left and right, but then regularly sneaking into mine? she thinks.

Sasuke stares at her face, then looks down at her tits, leaning in to mouth at one of them over her bra.

She gasps out a trailing, "Um..." at the sensation.

His hand follows his mouth and he takes her boobs out of her bra, arranging the cups underneath them, so her tits are perked up for him.

Her hand flies to his hair.

She is shifting a lot as he licks and bites at her chest.

He pulls away from her, still giving her a sleepy look, then grabs her arm and flips her onto her stomach.

He kneels over her, a knee on each side of her and bends forward, unclasping her bra and yanking it out from under her.

Sasuke tosses it uncaringly, to the floor.

Her underwear comes next. Pulling it down and off of her legs, he tosses that too.

He eyes the slope of her body for a minute.

She looks at him over her shoulder, but he clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

"Eyes forward."

She gasps and looks away. She has a small smirk on her lips that he can't see.

She's excited. He hadn't bossed her around in the bedroom in a while and she'd asked him to a while ago.

"You never listen, what the fuck is the point of wanting me to do that?"

Unexpectedly, his hands wrap around her ankles and he pulls her down the bed.

She yelps from the friction of the sheets against her bare chest. Then his arm comes into her field of vision and he grabs at her wrists.

"Keep these here."

He arranges her arms, so her forearms are flat and her hands are too. Her elbows are bent, she is holding her top half slightly off the bed as a result, her back subtly arched.

Then he's kissing up her spine, one of his hands caressing her ass.

She gasps in surprise when he slaps her ass hard and then she moans when he sucks on the skin at the back of her neck.

"…Mm, please," she murmurs.

His nose is behind her ear, inhaling. Then he bites at her earlobe.

"Please what?"

Sakura's fingers dig into her sheets.

"You know what," she says.

She feels his head shake, no, behind her.

"I don't."

She pouts, still staring straight ahead.

Jerk. He was messing with her.

Sakura lifts her ass and presses it against his crotch. She hadn't realized he'd removed his underwear and she inhales at the feel of his hard cock against her skin.

He pushes her body down with one hand.

"Please what?" he repeats.

She kicks her feet lightly. This was annoying.

"Please… fuck me?" she says, softly.

His hand wraps around her throat. Sakura is still holding herself up with her elbows, though most of her body is still pressed down against the mattress by his other hand.

He lifts his palm off her back and guides himself into her wetness. She moans low and loud at the intrusion.

Sasuke slides his hand up her side, as he presses his body against her back. His arm wraps around her and grips her hands, holding some of his weight off of her at his elbow.

His other hand is still around her throat. He feels her swallow against his palm as he thrusts shallowly, head next to hers, the sides of their faces touching.

Sakura turns to kiss his cheek. His grip on her neck is loose.

He sinks into her more, groaning softly as he moves in and out of her. Sakura cries out from the slow friction of his thrusts in her pussy.

Her bed is squeaking. The headboard softly hitting the wall.

Her moans and gasps get louder and he shushes her.

It's no use though.

Naruto had just woken up, walking past her door to get to the bathroom.

Their golden haired roommate, had been in the process of yawning and scratching at his head, when he freezes; distinctly hearing them saying each other's names on the other side.

The sound of the bed creaking, carries over, through the closed door. Shuffling past quickly once he processes what he's overhearing, he locks himself in his washroom.

Turning on the cold water of the sink to douse his face, he glances up at his reflection.

He looks spooked.

His fingers grip the edge of the sink tightly, to ground himself.

Sasuke and Sakura were weird with each other already. He knew that.

But he hadn't realized the extent of it.

Frowning now, he thinks he feels bad for them.

You couldn't help who you loved like that.

---

"Naruto's not home?" Sakura questions.

She's stretching her arms above her body, her flowy t-shirt dress riding up her thighs with the action.

Sasuke had pulled his work laptop out of his bag and was sitting at the dining table shirtless and ready to open it.

"Doesn't look like it," he comments.

Sakura looks confused, her arms dropping.

"It's really early for him though…" she trails off, looking at his open bedroom door with concern.

Sasuke glances up at her as he opens his device.

"What's your point?"

Looking down at her hands, she pushes back one of her cuticles, but doesn't say anything more. Something makes her feel uneasy, but she is not sure what.

Stopping herself from damaging her nail beds, she stops the nervous movement, instead walking towards the kitchen.

"Want iced coffee?" she asks.

Sasuke grunts at her. She takes that as a yes.

He'd taken a shower after fucking her this morning, the ends of his hair still wet.

She'd been too lazy to take one too, but she feels sticky and a little grimey.

She'll have to take one soon.

Standing around in the kitchen until the coffee is ready, Sakura pours both of them over two glasses, filled to the brim with ice from their freezer.

Sakura walks the glasses over, and puts one next to his left hand, on the table.

He mutters a thank you at her and she gets behind him, to look over his shoulder at his screen.

Her eyes widen.

She has no fucking idea what he's doing.

"I have to fix something," he mutters.

That's all he says, before he starts typing rapidly.

Sakura eyes the hodgepodge of code with an eyebrow raised for a second longer, then walks off, leaving him to it.

He made way more money than her. He had offered to cover off on her end of their bills early on, but she'd declined.

She had been adamant that she work too.

It's not a fancy job. She didn't need a college degree to do it.

Sasuke didn't need one for his either. With so much of their early lives out of their control, neither of them had wanted to waste the time or money being a voluntary prisoner to yet another system.

Regardless, certain things were easy for him to figure out and learn on his own.

She wasn't as lucky. It took her longer to do things. To practice and commit them to memory.

Eventually, she wanted to do something else, but for now she was okay with what she did for work. Waiting tables. It was comfortable. She knows Sasuke doesn't think the work is reliable, but she'd had the job for so long that she doesn't hold the same sentiment.

---

He doesn't usually want or need her to get him off.

If they're having sex, fine. Of course he's going to come.

Outside of that, he's never asked her to suck him off or play with his dick the way she strong arms him, into finger fucking or sucking on her pussy.

It's several days later and Sakura's in their bathroom, wrapped in a short towel and leaning over the sink counter so she can inspect her eyebrows in the mirror. She's plucking at them half-assedly with tweezers, when he walks in and starts stripping his clothes.

Naruto has oddly made himself scarce lately, coming home late and leaving when they're not around.

Their roommate is seemingly not home right now.

"Hey! I'm in here!" she complains, turning to Sasuke.

Her cleavage rises and falls while she huffs at him, and he glances at what he can see of her tits briefly, before responding.

"That's great. I don't care. I need to shower," he says.

Looking back at herself, she glares at him in the reflection of the mirror as he drops his pants and takes off his socks.

He disappears behind the shower curtain, turning the water on.

The room quickly begins to steam.

Sakura can't see her reflection anymore. The mirror is fogged up.

"Jerk-off," she mutters.

Opening the medicine cabinet, she deposits her tool on a shelf and shuts it, grumbling.

"What?" he asks, tightly.

"I said, you're a jerk-off!"

"…Oh."

Sakura raises an eyebrow, then approaches the tub on light feet.

She peeks behind the curtain.

This asshole was standing on the other side of it, quite literally jerking himself off.

Wow.

He scowls at her when he spots her eye peering around from the end of the shower curtain.

Sakura looks down at his hard-on, then back up at his face.

His whole body is wet, his hair slicked back and his hand flat on the tile near the shower head for balance.

He'd been mid-stroke otherwise.

Sakura drops her towel to the ground and pulls the curtain back, getting in with him. He turns around to face her.

"What are you—?" he begins, then chokes on his words.

She's very suddenly on her knees in front of him and she's licking and swallowing his cock with impatience.

"Fuck," he hisses.

Sakura hums happily, her mouth full of dick.

His hand comes to rest at her throat while she sucks him off. Gripping her throat while he shoves his dick down the back of it, makes him feel like he's going to lose himself much faster.

Sakura's green irises are open wide, as she looks up at him.

The water from the shower head is mostly hitting his broad back and sliding down it, not getting into her eyes.

She has one hand at his base and when the other begins to massage his balls he tells her he's going to come.

She nods, her mouth still full of his cock.

He fists his hands into her hair and holds her in place while he comes.

Her eyes scrunch shut and she gags around him. Her tongue caresses him while she swallows. Sasuke shuts his eyes at the feel of her throat moving beneath his hands, while she takes his load.

He looks down at her and releases her abruptly. Stepping backwards.

"You all right?"

She coughs and shakes her head, yes.

Sakura looks at him weakly from below.

"Help me up, please," she requests.

He lifts her by the arm until she's standing in front of him. She's still facing him, so he slides his fingers across her slit.

Her pussy is wet and slippery.

"You don't have to," she shrugs.

He looks down at her.

"You sure?"

She nods.

"Move over though, I need to wash my hair."

Glaring at her, he says, "Are you fucking kidding me? I was in here first to shower."

Sakura smirks.

"Didn't look much like showering to me," she teases.

"Fuck off."

---

"This is why you don't go to the store when you're hungry," Sasuke comments.

Later, closer to evening, he and Sakura are buying groceries to restock the apartment.

It usually took them forty-five minutes to an hour and they generally bought the same things every time.

This time however, Sakura was inexplicably starving throughout.

She stopped at every fruit, every vegetable, every section, every aisle finding some random thing to drop into their cart.

"Shut up," she grumbles. "Your fault. I told you to stop somewhere so I could eat first."

He ignores her, opting to push their cart forwards instead.

He eyes some of her selections and lifts an eyebrow.

"I want to try and make a pie!" she defends.

He side-eyes her now instead, as she walks beside him.

"You've never made a pie in your life."

Sakura looks up at him, defensive.

"You don't know that!"

They stop at the butcher and she steps away from him, to grab a ticket with a number on it.

He glances down at it briefly, once she returns to his side. They're number five in line, based off the current number being serviced.

"I do know that," he confirms.

Leaning forward against the cart handle, he gives her an unimpressed look.

Sakura pouts at him, then looks around.

She doesn't recognize anyone.

She leans forward and kisses him in passing, then says, "Fine. You don't get any."

He looks at her lips with half-lidded eyes as she pulls back from him.

"I don't like pie."

Sakura rolls her eyes, then focuses her attention on the next number being called.

"You don't like anything," she says.

He shakes his head, then stands up to his full height. He'd still been leaning, slightly bent, against the cart handle.

"I like you," he supplies.

Sakura glances at him and shrugs.

"I guess," she says.

She adjusts the strap of her bag, her fingers messing with the leather.

He'd bought her a new one as a gift, to replace the one someone had stolen.

She'd given him a soft smile and then she'd proceeded to toss it aside and maul him on the living room couch.

"What do we need?" she questions. "Did Naruto say he wanted bacon, the other day?"

Sasuke pulls out his phone and pulls up a note with their shopping list. He hands it to her wordlessly.

She looks down at it, committing the handful of items to memory, then gives it back to him.

Sasuke is not paying attention, looking elsewhere as their number is finally called.

Sakura's eyes are on a steak as she says hello to one of the butchers, uncaringly.

When he doesn't respond, she glances up and her eyes go round.

It's Kiba. A guy from her high school. He looks at her with blatant disapproval.

"Wasn't that your brother I just saw you kissing?" he comments.

The question is not loud. No one else can hear, she's certain.

Sakura glances back to Sasuke, nervously. He's inspecting a tomato he's pulled out of their cart and not looking at her.

Her face goes white as she turns back to Kiba. The blood has rushed away from her head, her heart beat increased. An almost phantom pain is at her chest, as the organ pumps on overdrive.

"Always knew you guys were weird," he continues.

Sakura decides she's going to ignore him and attempts to place her order.

She points within the cooling fridge and asks for a pound of beef.

Kiba's expression remains pinched as he puts on new rubber gloves and grabs what she's requested.

Sakura's fingers return to the strap of her bag and she plays with it, trying to keep her hands occupied.

Kiba weighs the meat, wraps it, puts a barcode sticker on it, then hands it to her.

"What else?"

Sakura states her request.

Kiba is pulling off his gloves and grabbing new ones when he says, "Didn't I ask you out once? You said no because you were banging your fucking brother?"

Sakura gasps. He hadn't been quiet this time.

The random person next to her, who had been surveying the selections too, looks up and gives her a grossed out look.

Sakura stutters, panicked.

"He's not my—he's not—"

By now, Sasuke's attention has been drawn to Sakura.

He frowns because she looks shaky from his vantage point.

She turns around abruptly, seemingly abandoning what she'd been doing and scurrying back to him and their cart.

She's clutching one parcel of meat and looking flighty.

"Let's go. I want to leave," she stutters out.

Sasuke pulls at the parcel. She is reluctant to let go of it, holding onto it firmly.

"What's wrong with you?" he questions.

He glances back at the butcher area. Some random woman and the kid behind the counter are staring at them.

Sasuke stares back, then looks down at Sakura. She's tugging on his shirt trying to pull him away.

"Where's the rest? I showed you a longer list than this," he says.

Sakura stomps her foot and looks at him. She appears crazed and really bothered.

"Let's. Go!"

Sighing audibly, he leads them both away.

---

Sakura is aggressively shoving bags into the trunk of his car, in the parking lot.

Sasuke stands there, observing her. He doesn't help.

He knows better than to get in the middle of Sakura and a freak out. If he so much as picks up a bag the wrong way, he'll make it worse.

"Calm down?" he says, instead.

Sakura freezes, angry.

"You can do the rest," she bites out.

She abandons her task abruptly and stomps off, opening the passenger side door and then disappearing into the vehicle with a loud slam.

His eyebrows are furrowed, while he finishes putting everything away.

Returning the cart, he gets into his car afterwards.

Sakura's arms are crossed and she's looking out the passenger window.

Sasuke doesn't turn on the ignition, instead looking towards her while his hands rest on the steering wheel.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" he asks.

From what he can see of Sakura's face, her expression is crumbling.

She starts crying.

"That guy working the meat counter… I knew him from high school," she says, teary.

Sasuke is not tracking, so he stays silent.

He gets upset when she's upset though, so he feels that, intermingled with his own annoyance.

Sakura looks towards him now, fat tears rolling down her face.

He reaches his hand out towards her cheek, but she pulls back from him.

His hand freezes mid-air and then he drops it, to rest on the gear shift.

"He saw me—saw us…" Sakura is struggling to get the words out.

Sasuke expels a frustrated breath.

"Saw us what?"

She smacks a fist against the top of the glove compartment and looks at him in anger.

"Are you stupid?! He saw me kiss you and fucking said something about it!"

Sasuke has nothing to say to this.

He hadn't recognized anyone working at the store, so he's not as bothered as she is.

However, he feels uneasiness creeping into him. It only took one person setting off an inconsequential spark, to light a damning forest fire.

"Then you shouldn't have done that around so many fucking people," he says darkly.

He starts the car and looks in the rearview, backing up.

Sakura is open-mouthed, outraged as she glares at his side profile.

She snaps her seat belt on with overly aggressive movements.

"Excuse me? Fuck you Sasuke."

"Yeah? You've done that. Multiple times."

If he wasn't driving she'd lean over and strangle him.

"I fucking hate you! I can't—I can't do this anymore!"

He lifts a shoulder up, then drops it while he drives. He feels like he's on autopilot.

"Whatever. I don't fucking care," he says, eventually.

Sakura is looking at him still. Appearing hurt now.

He doesn't want to deal with this. Sasuke doesn't say anything for the rest of the drive, though his fingers are white against the steering wheel, he's holding it so tight.

When they get home and park, Sakura storms out of the car, going up without him.

He sits there for a while, unmoving, staring at his hands.

---

He and Sakura don't speak for a week.

She makes her stupid pie and she doesn't give him any. By now, Naruto is back to his normal self. No longer avoiding the house.

The idiot comments on how good the dessert is and eats most of it in front of him.

"What'd you do?" Naruto questions, curiously.

Sasuke mean mugs him and doesn't respond.

"Must've been bad if you're not allowed to have any of her debut baked goods."

Sasuke is opening the double doors to their fridge, pointedly not looking at what's left of Sakura's stupid, piece of shit pie.

"Fuck off," he bites out.

He doesn't even like sweets.

On week two, it becomes more difficult not to speak to each other.

Sakura is in the kitchen by herself, attempting to yank a couple things out of the top shelf of one of the cabinets.

She screeches in pain, drawing her hand back abruptly.

There is blood and a lot of it. She'd sliced her palm on something sharp and unseen.

Her eyes bug out and she feels woozy the longer she stares at it.

Sasuke pokes his head out of his bedroom and spots her cradling her injury.

She glances up at him, then away.

Approaching her silently, he grabs at her wrist and pulls her to the sink.

Turning on the water, he moves her hand underneath the stream. Keeping his fingers wrapped around her small wrist.

Sakura's eyes are focused on the rivulets of her blood, swirling down the drain.

Sasuke reaches towards the nearby paper towels and rips off a couple pieces.

When he's satisfied that her hand has been rinsed enough, he turns off the faucet with his elbow, then lifts her appendage up to inspect it.

The slice is deep and he frowns at it.

He doesn't think a band-aid will be good enough.

He wraps it for now and applies pressure, the fingers of one hand still gripping her wrist and his other hand holding the paper towels down against her palm.

Sakura is looking away again and then she's wiping her nose with her unoccupied arm and sniffling.

They still have not spoken.

He lets go of her wrist, but keeps her hand secure by still applying pressure.

He grabs at her chin to rotate her face in his direction.

She lets him, but she doesn't look up at him for a while.

When her eyes finally meet his, her lips part.

Quietly, she apologizes. For being mad at him.

---

Reluctantly, Sakura allows Sasuke to take her to the hospital for stitches.

She's sitting in a check-in room with the door open and she can hear his voice carrying from the front desk. Where he's handling the paperwork.

"I'm the insurance policy holder," he says.

Contrary to how most people felt about them, Sakura had always liked hospitals.

She'd spent a fair amount of time volunteering in the children's ward, after she'd finished high school.

Eyeing the room she's in wistfully, she lets her mind wander to some of the patients she'd kept company.

She hopes they were okay now, wherever they are. She knew what it was like to be a child suffering. If she had helped them, even just a little bit, she was content with that.

She glances up, when a nurse enters through the open doorway.

"Haruno, Sakura?" she questions, seeking confirmation.

"Yes…"

"Date of birth?"

Sakura lists it off.

"Great. What brings you in?"

Shakily, Sakura lifts her injured hand. Sasuke had re-wrapped it with a neat strip of gauze before they'd left the house, but it had bled through again.

The nurse purses her lips and nods her head.

She sits on a rolling chair, and clicks into a laptop that's resting on a sterile counter.

"Last menstrual period?"

"Any chance you're pregnant?"

"Smoker or non-smoker?"

Her questions seem endless.

When she's finally done asking them, the nurse informs Sakura that she is going to take her blood pressure.

The dark haired woman selects the appendage on the uninjured side of Sakura's body, to run her diagnostic.

As she squeezes the pump to tighten the band around her arm, she asks, "How did you get your injury?"

Sakura glances at her jacked up hand, then says, "I sliced my hand in the kitchen, reaching into a cabinet."

After a pause, the nurse asks another follow-up.

"Is everything okay at home?"

Sakura freezes.

What?

"Yes…?" she says, puzzled.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" the nurse questions, sharply.

Sakura feels herself tense.

"Telling. It's fine," she confirms, firmly.

"Okay."

The nurse notes Sakura's BP, then pulls the velcro of the blood pressure band apart, yanking it away from her arm.

As she's putting the device back, she continues with her new line of inquiries.

"Are you sure? Who was that that brought you in?"

Sakura frowns.

"My—my brother," she responds.

"Older brother?"

"Yes," Sakura states.

"He or anyone else in the home aren't hurting you right?"

Sakura shakes her head, outraged.

"No!" she exclaims.

The nurse seems satisfied now. She does not ask anything around this again.

Sakura unfortunately, can't stop thinking about this the entire time she waits to get examined by a doctor.

She leaves the check-in room and sits next to Sasuke in silence, in the waiting room.

He turns to her with an eyebrow raised, but otherwise does not ask her what's wrong.

The waiting room is crowded, and he knows her well enough to discern that she likely would not answer in this setting anyways.

It takes about two hours to be seen.

Sakura's nose scrunches up, when the doctor sticks a long needle with numbing agent into her palm.

Sasuke hovers nearby, standing sentinel while the doctor treats her.

With his hands in his pockets, Sakura can't see the nervous twitching of his fingers as he witnesses her once flawless skin get butchered with sutures.

Once the doctor is done and is ready to wrap a light bandage around it, Sakura glances down, her eyes big.

"Wow," she gulps. "That's a lot."

The doctor laughs.

"Yeah, it was a pretty deep cut! We're lucky you didn't go through a nerve!" she says.

Sakura looks queasy now.

"I'm going to vomit," Sakura says.

The doctor backs away.

"Are you really?"

Stepping forward, Sasuke puts his hand on his sister's shoulder to ground her.

Sakura goes through a couple inhales and exhales, then smiles weakly at her brother and the woman who has just finished closing her up.

"Nah, I'll be okay!"

---

It's on the drive home, hopped up on painkillers and feeling deceptively calm from them, that Sakura tells Sasuke the weird line of questioning from the check-in nurse.

Unconcerned, he lifts his shoulders, eyes staying on the road in front of him.

"Yeah, that's standard. They always ask stuff like that."

"What?" Sakura asks, confused. "I felt like she was trying to imply something…" she trails off.

"No."

Her question gets him thinking.

"When's the last time you went to the doctor?" he asks.

Sakura does not respond. She doesn't know.

"I'm paying for your insurance. You should go," he states.

Sakura's head lolls back, before she responds. She's drowsy and feeling pretty good.

"I guess," she says.

Sasuke glances at her. Worried she's going to topple out the open passenger side window, he closes it from the controls on his side of the car.

"Don't you need to see a lady doctor for… woman shit?" he questions.

Sakura is staring at the window, confused on how it has magically shut.

She points at it, then looks at him.

"Don't be a fool. I closed it," he mutters.

Nodding her head, she drops her hand, then replies to his earlier question.

"Yeah, I do need to see one," she grumbles. "But it's annoying."

He doesn't stop completely at a stop sign, instead rolling through it hastily. He wants to get her home quickly, so she can lie down and rest.

"So what?" he says. "The dick doctor's annoying, but I go to that if I have to."

Continuing his grilling, he keeps going, "What about the dentist? The eye doctor?"

"I don't know! Do you go to all those things?"

He's nodding his head up and down.

"I do."

She glares at his side profile, while the car stalls at a red light.

"You need to take better care of yourself," he says, turning towards her. I'm serious."

Sakura's foot begins to tap on the floor of the vehicle.

"Stop—stop relying on me to do it for you," he adds on.

Sakura pouts at him, then looks down at her injury with sadness.

"Don't look at me like that." he says. "Didn't you say you hate me and you want nothing to do with me a couple weeks ago?"

Looking remorseful, she mumbles, "I'm sorry."

After that, she's quiet for the rest of the drive.

---

Woozy and discombobulated from her painkillers, Sakura sleeps it off for a while, in her bed.

Sasuke looks into her room while she's passed out, to check on her.

He doesn't like when she gets hurt.

She had always been clumsy though. Scraping her knees and cutting her hands and tripping on her own feet.

He doesn't think she'd be in good shape without him and this concerns him now, more than it has in the past.

She was an adult, not a child anymore.

But she was too dependent on him. Or maybe they were codependent on each other.

He sighs.

He's in his own bed a couple hours later, sleeping.

When he wakes up briefly in the middle of the night, Sakura is pressed against him, her wounded hand curled and resting palm up, at his chest.

She'd somehow snuck underneath his arm, her whole front molded to the side of his body while he lies on his back.

Looking down at the top of her head, he presses a kiss there.

Sakura's toes curl and her feet slide up and down his bare legs, but then she stills.

Sasuke ponders.

Here, everyone knew them. Knew they were step siblings or foster siblings.

They both hated it. He wasn't happy and neither was she.

The incident at the grocery store had been annoying.

He wants to be with her normally. Allowed to love her openly.

Maybe they needed to leave. Go somewhere else where no one knew them to do it.

It's not the first time he's ruminated over this. For now though, he keeps his thoughts to himself.

---

It had started out innocently enough. When Sakura was younger, between 11 and 13, she would seek him out when she was afraid.

If people in the house were yelling or if she'd had a bad dream, she would come.

She'd climb into his bed and sleep with her back to him.

As he got older, he didn't like it anymore.

He was 17 and her lying next to him as a 14 year old no longer felt innocent.

Her body was more developed and he'd find himself looking away from her frequently, during the daylight hours. Swallowing and feeling inappropriate for entertaining not so wholesome thoughts about his 'sister.'

He started locking his door at night.

Sakura didn't bring it up with him.

When she stopped coming home in the evenings to sleep though, he grew concerned. Agitated even.

They'd only intersected in high school for a year before he graduated, but her reputation as an easy underclassman floated through the gossip mills of the upperclass.

He'd sit there, overhearing guys outlining explicit details of fucking around with her and silently he'd fume.

The two of them didn't have the same last name. They didn't look alike.

Not everyone knew they were step siblings and as such they'd talk about her in excess, in his presence.

"You need to stop being a slut," Sasuke says to her.

Sakura gapes at him.

"Wh—what?"

"People are talking about you. And not in a good way."

Sakura ignores him though, carrying on in her own manner.

Sasuke graduates, spending his free time teaching himself random programming languages. Otherwise working odd jobs to make some money to feed the two of them.

Once he'd turned 18, he'd dipped and offered to take her with him.

"You can stay in this shithole or you can come with me."

"But I'm still a minor… they'll look for me," she'd said.

"No, they won't. They don't give a fuck about you."

He'd been right. Their final 'family' had continued collecting the checks on her, never reporting her absence and that had been that.

As she got older, she wouldn't come home for days at a time.

This stressed him out to no end and finally, he'd said something about it.

"I'm not always fucking people. I don't know why you assume that," she says.

"Then what are you doing?" he questions, hotly.

"I can't… I can't always sleep at night if someone isn't next to me," she admits.

He'd frozen, expression unreadable.

She'd slept next to him for a long time, until he'd stopped allowing it.

He thinks now, that he'd prefer her to be next to him, rather than floating in and out of random people's beds.

When she starts slipping back into his bed at night, it's noticeably different.

Her back presses closer to his body.

Her curves are softer, her breathing lighter.

Her hair is longer and bleeds over, onto his pillow.

She's drunk the first time she makes a move on him.

She's not the second time.

Or the third time.

By the fourth time he pushes her away.

"Stop."

"Why?" she whines.

"You know why."

"It's just… cuddling," she says.

She excludes the fact that she's rubbing herself all over him and sticking her tongue in his mouth too.

By the time he's lost count, it's escalated and they're in too deep, too far gone to stop.

---

Naruto is gone for the weekend, visiting his old mentor several hours away and Sasuke is at home, getting irritated at Sakura.

He's sitting in the kitchen, on a barstool at the counter, trying to put out a fire for work while she sits on the living room couch, staring at him from across the apartment.

Staring at him for over thirty minutes.

He looks up, irked.

"What do you want, Sakura?" he says in frustration. "I'm busy."

She turns her face away and reaches for the TV remote, turning it on.

She doesn't respond.

He lets out a deep breath and looks back down at his laptop.

When he glances back up ten minutes later, she's got her legs spread open while she sits, her pretty pussy on full display in his direction.

Her hands are on the insides of her knees, giving the appearance that she's holding her legs wide with them.

He blinks several times in quick succession.

Fucking…

He stands up abruptly, his knee hitting the counter in his haste.

"Fuck!" he hisses, in pain.

Sakura stares him down some more, as he walks towards her swiftly.

He stands in front of her and pauses for a moment, looking down at her.

"You want me to finger fuck you or you want me to tongue fuck you?" he questions.

She lets out a sigh that's borderline moan, and taps her fingers against the skin of her knees.

"Tongue," she says, wistfully.

He shuts his eyes for a moment and inhales.

Then he gets on his knees between her spread legs and grips her thighs, pulling her forwards so her cunt is lined up to his mouth.

Sakura buries her hands into his soft, raven hair.

He's just breathing on her to start.

She makes an agitated squeak and tries to pull him forward. When that doesn't work, she tries to push herself forward, but he's holding her in place so tightly that she can't move.

She starts to whine and pull at his hair harshly.

"You're spoiled," he mutters.

"No I'm not."

He looks up at her face and raises an eyebrow.

"I do almost anything you want. How does that not make you spoiled?" he questions.

Sakura frowns, getting impatient.

"Just, come on. Please?"

He gives her a tentative lick, his eyes still on her face and she tenses for a second before relaxing.

"Oh…" she moans.

When her eyes shut, he focuses on what he's doing.

He sucks at her clit and licks at her and digs his thumbs into the flesh of her thighs.

Her hands are in a death grip at his hair, but he doesn't care.

When he starts moving his tongue in and out of her she tries to shift away from him.

He doesn't like that.

He separates his mouth from her and moves his hands to the underside of her thighs instead. Then he pushes her legs back, towards her head and bends her in half.

She moans loudly at the change in contortion.

His mouth attaches to her clit with renewed vigor, sucking on her hard.

Sakura's hands are now digging into the couch on each side of her.

"No, stop," she breathes out.

He's not going to stop. She was doing that thing again, where she didn't want to come.

He guides one leg over his shoulder, keeping the other pressed firmly towards her head.

Then he adds his fingers into her while he eats at her.

He curls them in her and rotates them and presses them into all sides of her wet heat. His tongue at her clit moves in tandem.

Sakura screams and her eyes flutter shut. Her whole body shakes as she comes.

He eats her and fingers her throughout.

She's panting for breath and he's not stopping. He thinks he can make her come twice.

Sakura tries to grab onto his shoulders but her limbs feel like jelly.

Her breaths are coming out in short bursts as he continues to lick at her.

He pulls his fingers out of her and starts rubbing her clit vigorously instead, his heated expression now directed back at her face.

She's shaking her head back and forth, her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyebrows furrowed as she looks back at him.

"Fu—uck," she pants out, disjointedly.

"Come for me again," he says, quietly.

Her eyes shut halfway, he rubs at her center hard and fast and then she seizes up and comes again with a long wail.

---

It's later in the week and Sakura returns from the morning shift in the early afternoon, tired and sweaty. She greets Sasuke half-heartedly, then goes into her room to drop off her things.

He's too focused on what he's doing, to pay too much attention to what she does after this.

So when she starts yelling for him from the shower, he attempts to ignore it at first.

"Sasuke!"

He frowns at his computer screen. He's trying to work.

Sakura continues her hollering, for five minutes longer.

He glares at the closed bathroom door, then slams his laptop shut and stands up.

Walking over to the bathroom with heavy steps and gripping the knob tightly, he pushes his way into the steamy room with agitation.

"What?!" he asks.

Sakura peeks out from the side of the curtain, her body dripping with water and her hair wet.

Her makeup has washed down her face, giving her a raccoon like appearance.

"Finally," she grumbles. "Can you get me a towel? I forgot one."

He glares at her, unimpressed.

She'd yelled his name nonstop for close to ten minutes, because she'd needed a towel?

"You know I'm working right?" he questions.

She gives him an uncomprehending stare.

"Yeah, so?"

He's agitated that she would disturb his work for this. Work within a lucrative career path that he'd intentionally chosen to support the two of them.

He questions if Sakura ever acknowledges all that he does for her.

Sometimes he thinks, yes. Other times he thinks, no.

"What's wrong with the towel hanging on the rack?" he asks.

Sakura peeks at it.

"That's your towel," she responds.

He raises an eyebrow at her.

"I'm not using that," she says.

"What's wrong with my towel?" he questions.

She's fine with his dick in her mouth and inside of her, but she's not down to use his towel?

A light frown mars her features.

"It's—it's…"

She gives him an exasperated look.

"Can you just get me a clean one? Please?" she begs.

His eyes fall to her exposed chest. He stares at her tits for a minute, then he leaves the doorway to get her a towel out of the hall closet.

"Get me two! I need one for my hair!" she bellows.

Wasteful.

He grabs two for her, as requested. He purposely picks a pair of the softer ones.

When he gets back, Sakura is standing on the bath mat, dripping and shivering while naked.

There's a distinct crinkle at the outer corners of Sasuke's eyes that usually shows up, whenever he's annoyed. Sakura spots it now, as he enters her line of vision again.

He walks up to her, dropping one towel on the counter of the sink next to her.

Standing in front of her, he wraps the other over her shoulders and around her back, pressing the ends into her front.

Sakura's cheeks are rosy from the heat of the water. She mumbles a thank you and grips the towel to herself tightly.

"Why'd you get out?" he asks. "You could have waited behind the curtain to stay warm."

Though he's asked her a question, Sasuke doesn't let her answer, instead grabbing the second towel and throwing it over her hair and her head.

She yelps as he rubs it roughly into her wet strands.

Sakura wraps the first towel around her body more properly, so that she can tuck it around her chest.

Then she lifts up her hands and stops him from continuing the towel assault on her hair.

"Stop, stop!" she complains.

He lets go, but does not step back from her.

Sakura exhales a puff of air, as she pulls the towel back from her head.

"Gentler next time!" she berates.

Sasuke does not respond to this.

She turns away from him and bends over, wrapping the hair towel into a twist on her head.

Then she stands up and glares at him with her hands on her hips.

"You took for fucking ever to answer, I was done like fifteen minutes ago."

He looks at her in disbelief.

"So you wasted a bunch of hot water, wasted your breath and made me lose focus on work, just so you wouldn't have to get out and grab yourself a towel?"

Sakura lifts her nose at him.

"I like how the clean ones smell," she sniffs.

You're a brat, he thinks, amusedly.

---

"Yo."

Naruto is in Sasuke's doorway.

Sasuke looks up from where he's sitting on the floor of his room.

He'd been mundanely folding his socks.

"Sakura fell asleep on the couch," Naruto says, pointing his thumb in the direction of the living room.

"So?" Sasuke questions.

He looks back down to his task. Half of these socks were missing the second pair and he eyes the fallen soldiers suspiciously.

Naruto got shady when Sasuke did his laundry. He was too lazy to wash his own clothes, so he'd swipe a bunch of random things from the dryer when Sasuke did his.

If Sasuke had been willing to step into Naruto's bedroom, he's certain he'd discover half of his wardrobe.

Naruto's room was a garbage pit, black hole though.

Much like his bathroom.

Sakura had smacked Naruto upside the head left and right, just to drill into him that all other common spaces in their apartment were not to be tainted by him.

Naruto complied, for the most part.

Sakura kept him fed, and he wasn't risking going back to ramen cup dinners.

"So… you want to move her?" Naruto questions.

Sasuke gathers up his folded socks and stands up, walking them to a drawer.

"Just leave her there."

Growing impatient, Naruto shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

"I have people coming over," he says.

After he's organized his drawer, Sasuke turns to regard his friend again.

"Then wake her up," he says, tone short.

Naruto grumbles incoherently before speaking.

"She was so tired earlier, I feel bad!"

Sakura had worked a double, two days in a row. She'd wanted the extra hours to replenish her drained savings.

Sasuke had ended up calling the bank and the card companies for her and getting most of her finances straightened out, but Sakura had still felt a blip from her bag being stolen.

Sasuke groans.

"You move her then," he says.

Naruto gives him a funny look.

"And risk your wrath if I touch her wrong? No thanks."

Sasuke frowns at Naruto.

Naruto looks back at him, grimly. His blue eyes have a knowing glint to them and Sasuke does not like this per se, but he doesn't press.

He walks past Naruto to go retrieve Sakura.

---

Sasuke looks down at her, in his arms, as he walks across the apartment.

She hadn't woken up when he'd bent over and picked her up, off the couch.

Her hair is falling over one of his arms as he carries her bridal style to her room. His other arm is underneath her knees, wrapped securely around her legs.

Her cheek is pressed to his chest.

When he sets her down on her bed, she wakes up.

She eyes him, groggy, and pulls at his shirt to yank him down towards herself.

His eyes widen and he turns his gaze to her open door while he's bent over her.

Grabbing at her hands, he attempts to stop her from doing something.

She looks at him in confusion.

He shakes his head at her, his face close to hers, his hands on her wrists.

Naruto chooses that moment to walk past the doorway.

He looks in absently, then stops and stares at them.

Sakura turns her head slowly, away from Sasuke, to look back.

After a pause, she says, "I know you know," softly.

Sasuke inhales sharply, but does not turn his head to look at his friend. Instead, he pulls away from Sakura and sits on the edge of her bed, near her hip.

Feeling defeated, his posture is slouchy as he keeps his eyes on Sakura.

Naruto shrugs back at her.

"Yeah," he says, simply.

He shifts his mouth around, then rubs at his chin.

"I don't think I care though," he adds on.

Sakura's expression relaxes and Sasuke finally looks up at him.

The three of them take solace in the silence. An unspoken sense of relief, hangs in the air.

---

The rowdy friends that Naruto had invited over, end up staying late.

Irritated, because he was not in the mood to socialize, Sasuke had hidden in Sakura's room for most of the evening. He's not missed. Only his roommates know he's home.

Sakura had mingled for an hour or two with the group and had then come in to find Sasuke sullenly lying on her bed, staring at the wall and her dresser.

Well after Sakura passes out, he hears Naruto finally lead his friends out, close to two o'clock in the morning. Sasuke doesn't bother hiding the fact that he was not sleeping in his own room for the night from him.

Now that everything was out in the open with his best friend, he doesn't care anymore.

When Sakura rouses blearily, around 4:00 a.m., she gasps softly at the feel of Sasuke pressed tightly against her back.

She's curled in on herself, and his arms are wrapped around her. His hands grip at her knees and his forearms are flush with the skin of her bare thighs.

There is a light tremor to his body and she feels it against hers as he sleeps.

Her eyebrows pinch.

She wants to turn to face him fully, but he's restraining her so tightly that she can't.

Turning her head slightly, she eyes him over her shoulder.

His face is pained in sleep, his handsome features contorted. He'd discarded his shirt a while ago, his torso bare.

"Sasuke," she murmurs.

When he doesn't wake, she tries again.

"Sasuke!" she yells, louder.

His eyes shoot open and he looks at her, unseeing for a moment.

His fingers flex and curl into her kneecaps.

Sakura grips his wrists, prying his hands off of her. Then she turns her body around, to face him properly.

Instinctually, his arms wrap around her again, his palms now resting on the small of her back.

Sakura lifts her arms between their bodies and begins to caress his face lightly with her hands.

Her thumbs wipe at the corners of his eyes, an excess of liquid smearing on her fingertips.

His tears would collect there when she woke him up like this, but they would rarely fall.

Sakura fusses with his hair for a bit, then slides her hands down to his shoulders.

She attempts to comfort him through touch. He remains relatively stiff though.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks, quietly.

He stares at her, expression still strained. He shifts his head very slightly to the side.

No. He doesn't want to.

Sakura nods in understanding.

She continues to rub her hands on him to comfort him instead.

It's nothing new. She suspects that he's still plagued by a handful of reoccurring nightmares that used to bother him when they were younger. Nightmares relating to the brutality of his blood relatives.

He'd never grown out of having them.

His expression begins to shift from pained to frustrated.

This annoyed him, she knew. She has a vague picture painted, surrounding the memories that haunt him.

It's ugly.

Pressing forwards, Sakura kisses the tip of his nose lightly.

He crinkles it afterwards and gives her a half-hearted glare.

Don't coddle me.

Sakura ignores the request in his eyes and continues to fuss with him.

His hands shift from her back and circle around her wrists, stilling her movements with his grip.

Sakura eyes him sadly.

He was hurting and she wants to make it better, but he wasn't letting her.

Sometimes she felt like he liked to hurt. Like he dragged it out as some form of sick, self-inflecting punishment.

Punishment for being unable to help how he felt about her. For acting on it so frequently.

Letting go of her wrists, his eyes fall to the area between her breasts. Her loose, flowy tank top has fallen low and he bats her hands away to reach forwards, pulling her top down farther.

The underwire of her lingerie peeking out has intrigued him and he stares at it, the pads of his fingers now brushing against her sternum.

She'd worn a strappy, cage bra under a revealing top when Naruto's friends had come over earlier. The top, she'd swapped for her sleep tank, but the bra she must have forgotten about. Looking down at herself briefly, Sakura double checks what has suddenly enraptured his attention.

His brows furrow, his hand pulling her tank down even more.

Both of his palms press hotly, flat against her chest. His fingers curl into the exposed skin peeking out from the thin, yet sturdy straps.

Cautiously, she lifts her own hands again and now circles his wrists lightly, while he sleepily messes around with her front.

After several minutes of letting him palm her tits, Sakura promises she'll wear this for him again, some other time.

She's too drowsy to do much right now.

He leans forward and gives her a lingering forehead kiss.

Sakura's eyes shut after that and she falls into a light sleep, his hands still on her and hers still lightly gripping his.

Eventually, he falls into a dreamless slumber.

---

Sakura doesn't bring up incidents like that night, during daylight hours. She pretends they don't happen.

Instead, she aims to distract whenever they occur. Later in the week, she suggests that they go clothes shopping. Presently, they're at the mall.

"You need new shirts!" she says.

Sasuke glances down at her, nonplussed.

"I don't think I do."

Sakura walks alongside him, her arm brushing against his as they navigate through the throngs of people at the outdoor shopping center.

Sakura clicks her tongue.

"The last time we went shopping for you, was last year."

"So?" he questions.

Sakura narrows her eyes at him.

"So? Your clothes are old!" she admonishes.

She thinks he looks more than fine in whatever he's wearing, but she likes helping him pick stuff out. She won't admit that it's more to ruffle his feathers and see him bristle while he tries things on, than to actually see anything purchased.

Items purchased or not, it'll give them something to do. She knows his haunting dreams stick with him for several days after they happen.

Sasuke trails her at the department store they end up inside of, in silence. Letting her drop hangered garments into his arms without much complaint.

When his hands get too full, she starts holding onto the rest herself.

Sakura doesn't need to ask him his sizes. She has his shirt size and his pant size and his shoe size catalogued to memory.

There is no dressing room attendant. This is a blessing in his opinion, because he does not want to be associated with leaving behind a mountain of items he is certain he's not going to buy.

Sakura leads him through a maze of closed doors, to the very back room.

It's the biggest room and has multiple places inside of it to sit and stack clothes.

He raises an eyebrow at the angled panel of mirrors and discarded pair of worn down, high heeled shoes, kicked off into a corner.

"This one's the best room," Sakura supplies. "You can really spread out!"

Sasuke drops the pile of clothes in his arms, into an uncaring heap on a bench and then proceeds to pull off the shirt he's wearing.

"What would I want to spread out for?" he questions, as he picks up a dark polo.

Sakura hangs the selections that are in her arms, carefully on different hooks.

She frowns at the rumpled pile he's created in displeasure, as she puts different clothing types on different hooks.

He rolls his eyes. He's not going to spend time organizing prospective clothes by class of garment. Sorry.

Sakura places her bag on an unoccupied chair, then walks up behind him, a hand on her chin.

"Hmm. That looks kind of tight. Next," she snaps.

Ripping the shirt off, he drops it to the ground and then stands there, expectantly eyeing her reflection in the mirror. With his gaze fixed on Sakura, he avoids really looking at himself.

She narrows her eyes at him and turns to grab him some other prospects.

Once he's in between shirt number five and pair of pants number three, he says fuck it and grabs at her, instead of the next set of items she's trying to hand him.

"Is this—" he pants into her ear. "—Why you wanted to go shopping today?"

Sakura shakes her head, her cheeks flushed. He's undressed her, his hands sliding all over her body while he slips his cock into her.

"You grabbed me!" she pants out. "Not the other way around!"

Her eyes are wide at the sight of their multiple reflections.

She liked when they were able to do it in front of a single mirror, but this was taking it to another level.

She could see every angle, from almost every side. Front, right, left and back.

The only angle missing was from the top.

The department store clearly felt no need to add a mirror to the ceiling.

She scoffs at the observation.

"You're dripping," he mutters.

It's true. Visible slickness is sliding down the inside of her leg, in her reflection. His cock pummeling in and out of her is causing her juices to leak out of her.

She exhales and attempts to stifle down a moan.

There were other people in the dressing room, though not that many.

Sasuke's hand moves down her front and she watches it in the mirror while she feels it on her skin.

His fingers begin to rub into her clit.

Sakura's head tosses back, to rest on his shoulder.

Sasuke's other hand comes up and slaps across her mouth.

"Shut up," he growls.

Sakura grabs at her own chest and pinches her nipples, while his hands are occupied on her body.

She straightens her head forwards, so she can look at the scene.

Sasuke looks into her eyes again, in the mirror.

His hand is still covering her mouth.

He breaks the eye contact to bend his head down, towards her nape, lips working the skin at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Sakura tenses up and then comes hard around his dick. The sound she emits gets lost in her throat.

Noticing, he lifts his head up and guides her face towards his, removing his hand from her mouth to place it on her shoulder and swallow her scream with his lips.

He keeps his the fingers at her clit, keeping her upright with a hard grip. Their mouths still connected. Shifting his palm from her shoulder to her waist, he presses her against himself more firmly.

Then he comes into her, his tongue licking against hers throughout.

Sakura pulls her lips off his and looks in the mirror, her eyes blown.

His expression is impassioned and she is in awe of how he loses himself in her body. In her.

Sasuke mumbles something into her ear as he comes back down to reality and she smiles.

He tripped over the words in the rare event that he said them, but she knows he means them fiercely.

Even if the delivery was shoddy.

"I love you."

---

Sasuke is putting his clothes back on in front of her and Sakura is half dressed, sifting through the fat stack of items they'd brought into the dressing room.

"We'll get this one, this one, not this one," she says, tossing an unflattering button up to the side. "And this, and this, and…. Maybe this too?"

He lifts a brow at her as he pulls his original shirt over his head.

"How much is all of that going to cost?"

Sakura cocks her head to the side, assessing the items. A lot of them, she'd pulled from the sale section, so she doesn't think it'll cost that much.

Sasuke hands Sakura her top, eyeing it with concern.

It was a wrap top, with long and confusing ends of fabric that needed to be tied around her body.

Sakura dumps her selections for him on a hook, then grabs her top from his hands.

She puts her arms into the sleeves, then criss-crosses the top at the front; wrapping the ties around twice before holding them at her back.

"Tie this," she requests.

He sighs, then steps closer to her, looking down.

He takes the ties from her hand and knots them neatly, into a secure bow.

Sakura observes his work in the mirrors.

When he's done, she nods, satisfied.

She's pulling on her short, denim skirt while he looks through her final choices.

"I'm vetoing these three," he comments.

He holds the hangers out and Sakura glances at his extended arm.

"You're so boring!" she exclaims. "Everything you own is monochrome."

He'd selected the handful of items she'd tried to sneak in that were not white, navy or black to toss.

"I like it," he states.

"I thought you didn't like anything?" she teases.

He glares at her then shakes the hangers in his hand more forcefully.

"Take these," he huffs.

---

After checking out, they walk around, looking aimlessly into shops without going inside of them. When they are together, they tune out their surroundings to a fault.

The voice that carries from somewhere in the crowd behind them however, is hard to ignore.

"Is that Uchiha?" a male voice asks.

The man in question proceeds to whistle, then adds on, "Who's that smokin' hot piece of ass next to him?"

No one responds to him, but he's clearly talking to somebody, even though it appears to be one-sided.

Sakura's steps slow, and she reaches for the bottom of Sasuke's shirt and tugs at it subtly.

He glances at her from the corner of his eye.

"That guy was always swimming in pussy! Not fair."

Sakura gives Sasuke a heated glare at that proclamation and stops dead in her tracks.

Swimming in pussy?

"Ah shit, I think that's his sister," the voice grumbles.

Sasuke turns on his heel, facing the loud mouth that's been lagging behind them for several steps.

"Suigetsu," he says, evenly.

His old friend rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly and gives him a wave.

---

Sakura is fuming when they get home.

She follows Sasuke into his room, to deposit their shopping bags.

Then she slams his door shut and turns to him, hands on her hips.

He raises an eyebrow at her expression.

"What?" he asks.

Sakura lifts her arms up.

"What the fuck did he mean by, 'swimming in pussy?'" she bites out.

It's all she's been fixated on. She'd essentially gone into tunnel vision, with selective hearing after that.

Sakura doesn't ever remember Sasuke bringing any girls home.

Or going on any dates.

She'd always just assumed that he only had eyes for her.

That she was special to him.

She had barely processed being curtly introduced to Sasuke's shark-toothed old pal and the other large, orange haired companion Suigetsu had been at the mall with.

Her jaw had been clenched the entire drive home and her arms had been crossed tightly across her body, as she sat in the passenger seat, looking out the passenger side window.

Sasuke had glanced at her briefly, leaving her alone, rather than pressing.

Currently though, she's getting more and more upset as she considers the implications of Suigetsu's words.

Sasuke attempts to shrug it off.

"You barely came home for a year or two. I used to hang out with him a lot then."

Sakura's blood is boiling. Her nails dig into her palms as she stands across from him and her lips are in a thin line.

"What does he have to do with you swimming in pussy!?" she bursts out, seething.

Sasuke does not want to over share right now.

He doesn't say anything.

Sakura stamps her flip-flop clad foot.

"What did he mean?!" she demands.

Sasuke finds himself getting angry now.

Sakura ran herself all over fucking town. Granted, she'd been doing that less and less the past year. But that didn't stop her from coming to him on a whim, whenever she fucking felt like it.

Toying with him. Messing with his emotions.

On top of an already precarious situation, where they shouldn't have been involved like this to begin with.

All of the above withstanding, she'd also felt entitled enough to be angry about a comment made today, that had been relevant to him more than seven years ago.

Fuck this.

"Get out," he says.

She falters.

"Wh—what?"

"I said, get out. Get the fuck out of my room," he adds.

She's confused and hurt, but he doesn't care right now.

He walks up to her and pushes her towards his door, gripping her arms and walking her backwards.

By the time Sakura processes what's happened, his door is slamming in her face.

She stands there sullen, on the other side.

---

"Are you guys fighting again?" Naruto asks, innocently.

He is sitting on one end of the couch, his feet on the floor. Sakura is seated perpendicular to him, her back against the opposite end of the couch and her legs extended across the sofa cushions.

Her dainty feet rest loosely in his lap as they lounge about.

"What makes you think that?" she questions.

She adjusts the throw pillow at her back, so her spine doesn't dig into the worn down armrest of their couch, then eyes him expectantly.

"It's obvious when you are," Naruto states.

Sakura gives him a look of expectance, waiting for him to continue.

"You guys are ruthless, you don't make enough food for each other when you're fighting!" he exclaims. "You do it on purpose, like you're trying to starve the other person out by targeting sustenance!"

Sakura rolls her eyes and adjusts her feet in Naruto's lap.

"Who taught you the word sustenance?" she jokes.

Naruto gives her a playfully displeased look.

She grins at her jibe, then addresses his earlier observation. They so did not attempt to starve each other, when they were fighting.

"That's not true," she grumbles.

"Oh, it's not?" Naruto mocks. "Let's see," he continues, waving a hand in the air.

Affectionately, he grabs at her socked feet with his other hand.

"That time you made your first pie and didn't let him have any," he starts.

That one was recent.

Sakura frowns and kicks his hand away from her foot.

Sasuke just thought Naruto was innocently stealing his socks on laundry day, but Sakura had begun growing suspicious that he had a freaky, foot fetish instead.

A fetish he fed by hoarding socks of all types.

She herself, was missing three different pairs of colored fishnet ankle socks.

The remaining pair, she'd hidden in a shoebox at the top of her closet and luckily, that pair lived on.

Don't touch my innocent toes! she thinks now, unreasonably.

It was possibly a stretch, but Sakura had let the conspiracy theory fester for so long in her head, that she got a kick out of believing in it.

"The other night, when he made pasta and only left you half a meatball," he continues.

"That time last year, when you threw out all his newly bought salad dressing because you said the bottles were expired," he adds.

"Two years ago, when you brought back food at the end of your shift for me and you, then claimed there weren't enough takeout boxes to bring Sasuke any."

"Okay, I get it," Sakura states.

Naruto keeps going.

"Earlier this year! When he made ramen from scratch for my birthday!"

Sakura doesn't like this story.

The smell of that soup had enticingly wafted throughout the apartment for the entire day.

Sakura had assumed that since her brother had spent so much time on it, that they would put their fight aside and she'd get to try some.

She'd been wrong.

The two clowns had over-eaten the entire pot and proceeded to spend the night barfing it all out instead.

"That's what you fucking get, asshole!" she'd screamed, from outside the bathroom.

They'd made up then though. Sakura didn't like seeing Sasuke weak, so she'd relented and taken care of him afterwards.

"Maybe you didn't boil the pork enough?" she'd said.

"No. I really just ate too much. I deserve this. I didn't want you to have any," he'd responded.

Idiot.

---

Sakura comes home from work later in the week, to find Sasuke meticulously cutting vegetables at the kitchen counter.

The expression on his face is stern, and he does not look up at her once she enters and loiters around in front of him.

If she's going to put any weight behind Naruto's observation, then Sasuke is likely not making enough portions for all three of them.

Sakura pouts subtly as her eyes land on a pile of thinly cut mushrooms.

Was he using truffle oil on those!? she thinks, longingly.

He's ignoring her studiously, but it's not doing much in making her go away. Sakura is doing a bad job of hiding her hunger while she stands there, likely imagining sautéed mushrooms with truffle oil.

She could blow him. They didn't have any fucking truffle oil in the house. He'd attempted to replicate it once for her, because she'd tried it at an obscure restaurant and had liked it.

The knife in his hand drops with a clatter and he glances up at her, agitated.

"What?" he questions.

Putting a stop to her internal salivating, Sakura asks, "Want help with dinner?"

So. She's tiptoeing around the real issue, then, he thinks.

They are overdue in talking to each other about their situation. Their exclusivity. What is or isn't okay.

It's a conversation that neither of them want to have.

For the most part, in years past, Sasuke had been content with letting Sakura do whatever she wanted.

If she was in the mood for him, fine. If she wasn't, also fine.

She had never expressed much interest in matters of his personal life that did not include her.

Now however, he's finding himself chronically irritated by how her sporadically loose behavior makes him feel.

It's become increasingly harder for him to ignore the fiery rage that's swimming beneath the surface of his otherwise stoic and neutral countenance.

It's not one sided. Sakura has been exhibiting jealousy tangibly. More and more often.

If they continue on this way, he knows that it will only get worse.

Adjusting the knife he's dropped to the counter, so that it's less precariously placed, he looks up at her.

Sakura stares back.

"I don't see anyone else but you. You know that right?" he asks. "I haven't for a long time."

Sakura's eyes dart to the side and she bites at her lower lip, before glancing back at him again.

Slowly, she nods her head.

Yes, she knows this.

"So then, why are you making me share you with other people?" he questions, finally.

From the widening of her eyes, it is apparent that he has taken her by surprise.

Sakura's fingers lift up and grip the edge of the counter. She is standing across from him, not in the kitchen but in the dining room side of the counter.

"It—it makes it feel less serious… if I see other people in between," she admits.

She pauses here, because she's not finished. But she is apprehensive about saying the rest. Taking a deep breath, she decides to keep going.

"And it helps me forget… that you're— that we're supposed to be—"

Siblings.

He raises an eyebrow and then shifts his attention back downwards, to the cutting board of half-chopped vegetables in front of him.

Remaining silent, his hand lifts the sharp bladed knife off the granite again and he proceeds to chop at the remainder of items in front of him.

Sakura's fingers rap against the counter, nervously.

All that is heard is the methodical thud of his knife hitting the board's bamboo. The periodic swish of a vegetable getting sliced through.

"When's the last time you thought of me as your brother?" he questions, not looking up.

Looking glum, Sakura doesn't respond out loud.

Maybe never, she thinks, uncertainly. But maybe for a short while, a long time ago too.

Instead of verbalizing, she fixates on the movement of his fingers, as he continues to chop everything into neat little squares and circles.

"If you want casual, that's not something you can get from me anymore," he says. "It's not going to work. You know it. And I know it."

From the other side of the counter, Sakura is clenching and unclenching her bare toes into the ground.

Sasuke swallows.

"I—" he starts, cautiously. "I love you too much for that," he continues, looking up at her pointedly.

Sakura feels her eyes begin to water. Quite quickly, she chalks it up to the onion that's already been diced and bowled on the counter.

It's the first time he's said the words without stumbling over them. Clear and confident. With certainty.

With his attention back to prepping their dinner, Sakura continues to linger. Watching.

She doesn't offer to help him with it again. Under normal circumstances, Sakura liked to watch him while he cooked. She tended to hop over and demand samples, contributing to his dishes with opinions on seasonings.

Flavor was an area where he fell flat.

Right now though, Sakura is too on edge to try and assist anymore. She doubts she'd taste much of anything if she sampled it. There is a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

"Do you ever think about just getting away? Starting over? Somewhere else?" she asks, timidly.

He doesn't answer for a long while. With the amount of silence that has passed since she asked her question, Sakura does not think he is going to respond.

Then, quietly, he says, "All the time."

---

They eat together in companionable silence that night. Naruto texts that he's spending the night in the library, working on an assignment for class.

Afterwards, Sakura helps wash dishes. Full and content, they fall asleep on the couch. Sakura on top of him. Their limbs tangled together.

In the middle of the night, they move to her bed.

Sakura sleeps lightly, facing him. Their noses are touching and his hand rests on her side while she breathes in and out softly.

He's drowsy, but awake. Feeling the soft puffs of air against his face while she inhales and exhales.

Rubbing his nose against hers, he kisses her lips softly a couple times.

It takes him by surprise, when she starts kissing back. His hand tightens against her skin and one of hers trails up from his chest, to the side of his neck.

A deep sound gets stuck in the back of his throat when Sakura begins to search his mouth with her tongue.

Pulling an inch away, she moves her nose against his some more and licks her own lips. As if she's deciding what angle to continue kissing him at.

He thinks he wants to take his time tonight. To map her body and enter her slowly and savor every part of her.

It feels different now. Now that they've addressed it.

They really only had each other to talk to about how this made them feel. They were both guilty of avoiding difficult conversations. It was easier to show how they were feeling, rather than discuss it.

That worked sometimes. But it wasn't working for something as complicated as this.

Sasuke is above her, pinning her arms down and thrusting into her deeply.

Sakura looks back at him, expression pained. She attempts to yank one of her arms from his grasp, but is unsuccessful.

He is pushing into her at an angle, hitting her in a way that is making her fidget.

He eyes her with displeasure.

"Stop trying to get out of it," he says.

Sakura's pussy clenches tightly around him and her mouth drops open.

"It's too much," she moans. "I'm—I'm burning," she whimpers.

He leans down to lick at her lip. Grinding into her heavily, the deep penetration makes her moan long and loud.

"Burn for me."

One of Sakura's spread legs begins to shake sporadically. She comes undone underneath him, her head thrashing from side-to-side, her limbs trembling and her arms attempting to pull herself away from his hold.

He holds her tightly and keeps her in place though. His eyes close and he groans audibly, basking in the feel of her pussy milking his cock.

Leaning down to kiss her deeply, his tongue traces her teeth and then licks at hers.

He comes into her while their lips are locked, holding himself deep inside of her while he does it.

She gasps against his lips, her eyes wide.

---

For a couple weeks after they've had their discussion and made up, they are internally both having the same thoughts.

They want to leave with each other.

Sakura makes a move first.

"I quit my job," she says.

Sasuke glances up from his laptop, where he'd been half-assedly wrapping up an email draft at the dinner table.

"…Why?" he asks.

She pulls out the dining chair adjacent to him. Flipping it around, she sits in it backwards, her legs straddling the backrest.

"I want to travel," she tells him.

Sasuke frowns.

"Together," she adds on.

He is frozen for a time, staring at his computer screen without really processing what's on it.

Sakura's eyes fall to the hand he has on his wireless mouse.

It's still.

Then, it's moving and he's typing.

Unbeknownst to her, he's just put a meeting on his boss' calendar.

To give his two week notice.

---

"The lease is almost up," Sasuke says, to Naruto.

The three of them are picking at the remains of a pizza they'd just demolished at their dining table.

Sakura is seated closely to Sasuke's right, and Naruto is sitting by himself, across from them.

"Didn't we just sign that?" Naruto questions, licking his fingers.

Sakura eyes him in distaste while she wipes at random crumbs on the surface of the table with a napkin.

She had a habit of reverting into server mode at times, and Sasuke would often remind her to scale it back and relax.

Right now though, it's minor, so he lets her be.

"Four years ago, yeah," Sasuke says.

Naruto's blue eyes narrow in confusion.

"Well, didn't we just resign that?"

Sighing loudly, Sasuke stacks his empty plate on top of Sakura's, then pushes the dishes forwards, towards the middle of the table.

"We've signed an extension addendum every twelve months," Sasuke states.

Looking down to wipe his hands on his jeans, Naruto glances back up.

"Yeah so… didn't we just sign that?"

Sasuke has trouble keeping his fist from connecting with Naruto's face.

Moron.

"We're not going to resign it this time," Sasuke says.

Naruto squints his eyes again and rubs at his chin.

"What do you mean?" the blond asks.

Having wiped their side of the table to a degree that she finds sufficient, Sakura puts a hand to one hip and chimes in here.

"Sasuke and I! We're leaving. To travel!"

Naruto takes a minute to process this. The implications of what this means dawns on him relatively quickly.

He grins softly.

"I can visit when you guys are settled somewhere right?"

Sakura smiles back. Sometimes Naruto was slow, but other times he was sharp.

"Of course, stupid," she says.

---

Whatever furniture Naruto does not want to keep, they get rid of.

They pack only what they need. Their most important possessions filling up the back of Sasuke's car.

Outside of Naruto, there are not too many people to say goodbye to. Sakura visits the diner one last time, to say bye to Ino and her boss.

They don't have a set destination in mind, putting faith in the open road.

Sakura is excited, but she's nervous too.

For whatever reason, the two of them had stayed closeby to where they'd grown up.

It's an unknown. Going off together, into the sunset.

It's also new territory as it pertains to their relationship. Sasuke does not plan on referring to her in the same capacity that he had done in the past. No one will know them, the places they're going.

The scandalous nature of their pairing, and the stress that it had given the both of them is lifted.

He inhales deeply as he drives. Sakura has dozed off in the front seat. It's nighttime and they'd been driving for a couple days now, stopping at various motels and hotels as they explore.

They only book a room with one bed. And nobody cares. It's such a simple, stupid thing to bask in. But he's basking.

More than one person they've come across, has referred to them as a couple and he's noticed Sakura's lift lip up at it, every time.

Sasuke wishes they had done this sooner. Up and left. But he doesn't think either of them had been ready for this before.

He knows Sakura had been frightened by how she felt, and who she was feeling it for.

He glances at her briefly. Her head is slumped over her shoulder, in his direction. Wisps of her long hair, brush against her cheek and her neck.

Reaching over, he pushes some strands back, tucking the pink locks behind one of her ears.

Sakura stirs at the physical contact, and blinks awake.

He's looking back at the dark road again, but his hand lingers in her space.

Smiling sleepily, she grabs at it, and laces her fingers with his. Resting their hands against her thigh that's closest to the middle console.

She doesn't want him to have to reach too far over, but she wants to touch him right now too.

"Where are we going next?" she questions, yawning.

His fingers flex against hers tightly, then loosen, staying locked between hers.

"Wherever you want," he says.

---

FIN.

---

*There is a manhwa from 2006, called The Flower of Evil (by Lee Hyeon-sook). It wasn't the inspo for Forbidden, but it came to mind a couple times while writing this. If you're now interested in something similar, there's a reco for you. Note, it is substantially darker & more twisted than this story!

---

If you like Forbidden, check out other fics by illCat (me)

Blow: Drug Dealer AU. Multi-chapter WIP. Pt. VI pending editing
Marionette: College AU with a twist. Multi-chapter WIP. Ch. 17 pending editing
Pieces: Dark AU Prompts; Fantasy AU/Landlord AU. Ongoing
The Bride: Kill Bill-esque, Assassin AU. Three-shot.
Courtesan: Sex for Money AU. One-shot.
Tarnished: Good Girl/Bad Boy HS AU. Two-shot.

Story previews and teasers can be found on TW at illCatFF