I do not own Naruto. Uncontrollable fluff.
In both her lives, Ryuishi Watanabe has always been a physical person. To her, speaking without moving is unthinkable, half of communication is body language for a reason. Touch is something she has always relied on to convey meaning, to gain understanding, and to simply feel.
Even now she does it, gesturing with her hands, pacing, or fiddling with her clothes. She expresses what she wants with her body, be it anger or sadness, love or hate. With fists and fingers, she tells a story, her own.
It doesn't stop there either. Touch is something she craves. She relishes the feel of pressure against her skin. She finds contentment and joy when people reciprocate and respond, by playing with her hair or embracing her, holding her hand, or resting against her.
She admits that it may be tainted a little with all the trauma inside her head. Admittedly, sometimes when people go to touch her she expects to be struck or touched inappropriately. She flinches, or reels back, dodges blows that aren't coming from her. It makes her angry, at herself, because to her, touch was always meant to express. It is one of her greatest joys and comforts.
It stands to reason then, that being such a physical person, that she likes companionship in almost all matters. Including sleep.
She won't lie and say she doesn't enjoy stretching out and relishing in her own bed, but she also won't deny that she is, in fact, the biggest fucking cuddler. It's a thing. It happens.
She just never realized that it would say so many things to so many people.
Zabuza is halfway to falling asleep in the safe house near the border when his door creaks open. After weeks spent battling through mud and straining against the frigid temperatures, he is beyond tired. Not that he would ever say it aloud of course.
So when he hears the squeak of hinges, he is mildly enraged, ready to curse whoever is bothering him and maybe skewer them with the sword laid next to him. He will make it quick and clean only because he wants to sleep, and it is a hard thing to do these days.
He turns his head, ready to reprimand whoever it is, but stops when he spies the small form of his partner shutting the door behind her.
"I'm sleeping with you. My room is too cold," she informs him quietly.
He grunts, pleased. Ever since the incident with the erection, they haven't shared a bed as often. He finds it strange, because she was the one who informed him it was perfectly natural, but he had accepted the loss like a true shinobi. Not once had he complained.
It seemed his stoicism paid off, because some nights, like tonight, she would return.
He hears her pad silently over the floors, her little feet quickly stepping towards the bed. Soon enough the covers over him shift and he can feel the cold night air against him as she slides beneath the blankets.
She breathes out, and the gust of tepid air brushes against his throat as she wriggles closer. An icy arm is thrown over his chest, and the frigid limb makes him shiver just once. His tool is always cold for some reason, but he is more than glad to provide her warmth.
Her chilly leg slides over his and he feels the glacier like appendage that is her foot touch him. He crushes a yelp in his chest and grits his teeth, baring with it. The feel of her face burrowing against his shoulder and the smell of saltwater and pear blossoms is enough of a payment for him.
"Thanks Zabuza," she whispers, and he can feel her lips moving against him. He grits his teeth, demanding that his body get under control and not flush. That it never flush again. He is a shinobi, and shinobi do not blush when their tools make intelligent decisions like pooling body heat on a cold night. It's just logical. If anything they should be rewarded for such a wise choice.
He feels something inside his stomach flutter as her breathing evens out, and thinks that he likes her like this, quiet and calm at his side. He likes that she will risk waking to another unfortunate incident just to be here.
It tells him that she likes to be near him as much as he likes to be near her.
Kisame doesn't get much of a say on nights like these. He has learned over time that fighting against the pajama clad girl is about ten times the trouble of just letting her get what she wants.
He sees the swish of a braid in the moonlight illuminating the barrack room, and hears the quick intake of breaths. He knows the moment she crawls into the bed she will wrap her arms around his neck in the most uncomfortable way imaginable and bury her face in his collar bone.
This time is no different and she sneaks across his room like an enemy is watching her, and scrambles up into his bed. In seconds she has him locked in an embrace, and he sighs as he lifts an arm to rub her back.
The youngest member of his unit shivers as she practically lays on top of him, and he knows that while she may be cool, her shaking is not from the cold. Ever since they joined the front-lines she has visited sporadically in the night.
She breathes out, and he can feel the bandages on her shin below his knee. He knows this one will scar, and for a moment he feels guilt. The Suna kunoichi should have never gotten close enough to do the damage she did, but Kisame had been busy taking out a puppeteer, and Zabuza had been similarly occupied half way across the battlefield. The blond woman had managed to dodge the girl's weapon and slide under her defense enough to do some serious damage. They're all lucky that Ryuishi was flexible enough to raise her leg that high. The sai could have just as easily sliced through her gut.
"Sorry," she mumbles into his collar, and he huffs out a breath. At this point, there isn't really a need for apologies anymore.
"Squad Eleven again?" he asks, and the girl nods, her soft hair brushing against his chest.
He hums, and continues to rub circles against her back, his eyes staring at the moonlight pouring through his window. It's weak and fading, and he guesses it makes sense. She always gets more terrors when there is nothing in the night sky.
"You're the best Kisame." she tells him sleepily, and his chest aches with warmth at her words. He knows the affection he holds is more than professional, but he doesn't really care. It's hard too when she shows him how much she thinks of him when she comes here.
It tells him that he makes her feel safe.
The first time the woman-child tries to clamber in his quarters, he throws her out like a dog, grabbed around the nape of her neck and tossed indignantly out of the room. He finds her curled up in an alcove, surrounded on all sides by sturdy stone walls, the entrance trapped and secured.
The second time he sneers disdainfully until her muted sense of shame burns on her tan cheeks and she walks away herself. She serves him breakfast the next day without looking him in the eyes.
The third time he summons a horde of snakes to chase her. He discovers that, somehow, she has caught every single one of them a meal and bribed them into wrapping around her. He finds her still sleeping form, limbs weighed down by pythons and hair tangled with vipers, on the ground in the kitchens.
The fourth time she comes to him at night, she presents a ten page thesis paper on her reasons, the benefits of the arrangement, and the possible downsides, along with an additional few pages of graphs and previously documented studies from books in the labs.
Then she slips under his sheets before he can finish reading it.
As a legendary and feared criminal, the behavior may come as a bit of a surprise. They both know she is not the child her body appears to be, and there is no implicit reason for her to be doing so. Then again, he is consistently mildly amused and surprised by her treatment of him. Half of the time she treats him like he is something to be wary of, and the other half she treats him like a close and personal friend. The only reason he allows her there that night is because she never fails to treat him with respect and acknowledgement.
"You hypothesis is weak and your personal reasoning means little to me." he tells her, wryly amused at the way she has covered herself, head to toe, in his blankets.
"My data is more than sufficient to backup my hypothesis, even though the wording of it may need some work." she answers back. He can hear the weariness in her voice. Training may have been a little harder for her today, but he only accepts the best.
He hums out his acquiescence.
"Also, my vivid hallucination inducing fitful sleep and insomnia should pertain to you as my health care professional, not to mention the comfort of social contact lessening the symptoms of my PTSD." she argues further, her voice muffled by the pillow she has her face pushed into.
"That may be true, but I was speaking of the third paragraph on page eight. I have no need to know what your teammates and you did previously."
"You do if you want to strengthen the positive reactions and treatment. I related it back to Pavlovian training in the next paragraph." she answers.
He hums again, his eyes darting over the said writing. He would have liked to have read the books she claims to have, or absorbed half the knowledge she had access to in that world she says she came from. Imagine, a world with scholarly pursuits of science within the law. No discrimination for his curiosity, only several paths to satisfy it. Fourteen years of education she claimed, and she said there were many more available. The things he could have done…
"Very well." he tells her, and something in the linen wrapped lump relaxes as the woman-child scoots closer. Neither of them are very warm, but as he extinguishes the light he feels there is something gratifying about the way her small body curls against his side. There is something to be said for physical contact alone.
Her persistence and willingness is soothing in a way he will deny for a very long time.
It tells him he is accepted and, in a way, cared about.
Naruto was alone for a very long time.
For him, it seemed like he was alone forever! He didn't know why, but nobody liked him. They didn't like hearing him, or seeing him, and they said mean stuff about him all the time. It made him sad, and hurt, and angry. Most of all though, he felt lonely.
Then, one day, he the best thing ever happened. He found a garbage fairy! She was dirty and smelly, but she looked at him, and she didn't flinch, or yell, or anything. She just treated him like a person.
So he took her home, and then she showered. She played with him, and made him the best dinner ever! Okay, maybe it wasn't as good as ramen, but she cooked it right there and even the vegetables didn't taste that gross. She told him that she didn't care about monsters, or demons, or anything like that. She said she had even been friends with two of them!
The best part was, she let him call her Nee-chan. He was sunshine, and she was his big sister.
Once, when she came over, they built a big tent in the living room out of blankets. It was his castle, and they protected it from bad guys and a huge monster, but then the monster they fought turned out to be okay and they all sat down and ate another big meal that tasted awesome but was called something weird.
They played in the tent all day, and Naruto learned how to count a little bit with the 'Uno' game. Seeing the numbers in action and having Nee-chan there to help him made it a lot easier. It was so much fun.
At night, Nee-chan dragged out a whole bunch of blankets and pillows from his room and her magical, super heavy back-pack. They put them inside the tent, and they made a huge bed. After his bath, he laid down in the dark, and she sang to him. Her voice was all soft, and quiet. and calm, and he didn't know the song, but the words sounded so pretty. She wrapped the blanket around him and he wrapped his arms around her, his head resting on her belly.
Her hands ran through his hair, and her voice made him sleepy. He could hear her heart beating somewhere above him, steady and calm.
He was happy. He was so happy, because this, this is what he had always wanted. To be accepted and to be noticed.
Naruto had never had a mom or a dad. He had no blood family like the kids he saw on the streets, but that didn't mean anything. When Nee-chan came in , he knew everything had changed.
When she tucks him in and he falls asleep next to her, it tells him what he needs to know.
It tells him he has family.
Gaara doesn't sleep. He knows most people do, and he's tried a couple time, but it never seems to work for him. He always wakes up feeling… different. The whispers inside his head are louder, almost making words, and it makes makes it feel too full. His honorable father is always standing over him when he wakes up, looking haggard and disappointed.
The look makes him...cold. He thinks that's the word.
Gaara does get tired though, but because he can't sleep, he does something else. He lets his head go quiet, and he just….drifts. He doesn't think, and he doesn't move. It's not sleeping, not really, but he isn't awake either.
He doesn't like it though, because it's hard to drift when things are moving, or when people talk. It's easy to drift when he's bored, or when nothing keeps him moving. He can't drift when he wants to, and sometimes he drifts without meaning to at all.
That is, he never used to be able to drift when he wanted.
Then, Aneue came to Sunagakure, and everything changed.
Aneue plays with him, and she eats, and she laughs, and she says bad words. She touches him, and carries him, and she scolds him when he is bad. When she is around, the whispers quiet, and he feels his chest fill up like he just breathed in. When she touches him, his sand feels cooler where her skin was, and when she ruffles his hair, his head tingles like there are scorpions in it. Good scorpions.
He likes her candy, and her smiles, and her kisses, even when she makes them loud and all over his face.
His favorite thing about Aneue though, is that she sings.
She sings, and some of the words are just sounds, and sometimes they mean things. Whatever music come out though, he can feel it. He can feel it like a full stomach, or a nip on the tongue, or the sun on his head.
He feels the song. Her voice sounds like smoke and honey, and he feels it in his heart when she sings.
When she holds him, and she sings, he drifts and he feels it. He lets the noise carry him, lets himself feel the pressure of her touch and the coolness of her skin through his shell. He drifts so hard, it almost feels like sleep, but when he wakes up, there is aneue instead of father and his head doesn't hurt. She curls around him, asleep of awake, like his sand.
He listens, and held tight and safe, he hears what it her song says, what the drifting says.
He listens, and it tells him he is loved.
Ryuishi will never know the full extent of what her physical affection mean to everybody. Sure, she'll figure out a few, but most will remain in the hearts of those who have been graced to be her bunk-mates.
The collection will grow with time, and many will see it as sort of a gesture of favor. If Watanabe Ryuishi likes somebody, if she trusts somebody, if she damn well pleases, she's going to hop into bed and twine her limbs with theirs. She'll steal your pillows, or use your body like one. She'll wrap herself in borrowed sheets and stolen warmth, and she will be there, an unforgettable presence that says something.
It doesn't say the same thing to everybody, and sometimes it does even say the same thing all the time, but no matter what, her bunk-mates know that it will always tell them something.
AN: So, sort of a fluff piece. Mostly just some opinions on what Ryuishi gives to people without meaning too, and how it's part of her charm. Also, how she is physically hungry for touch, and she knows this. I feel, eh, about this? But it was warm and fuzzy and stuff. Fluff. Affections.
It's half beta'd by aturnofthepage, so bless them. I then added more afterwards, and wanted to post this. So all mistakes are mine.
I also am loosing some steam so, eh.
Thanks for reading, as always. Bless you guys.