I just posted a journal on Y!Gallery about how I was stuck on this chapter, and then I turned the music on and PLOP! Out it came, all over notepad.
Fancy that!
Sasuke stepped out of his car, immediately feeling the sea breeze wash over him, already calming his frazzled nerves. His hands had shaken for half the drive, but the farther he'd gotten away from Naruto and the confusion that surrounded the blond, the better he'd felt.
Locking the doors with the push of a button and a quiet beep, he shoved his keys and his hands in his pockets, head down and lost in the thoughts he was trying to get rid of even now. He didn't see the other person on the pier until his shoulder bumped rather hard into them, stumbling in his surprise and only managing not to fall into the frigid water by the grace of God and the hand that gripped his wrist forcefully.
Sure that he was steady, the hand (warm and cold at the same time) released him, leaving a tingling feeling from the skin on skin contact, and when Sasuke lifted his gaze to see who had just nearly caused his impromptu swim and subsequently saved him from said swim, the words died on the tip of his tongue.
The man that he'd bumped into was stupidly beautiful, practically dripping a fluid and intense kind of power as easily as if it were perfectly natural. He couldn't find a single flaw in that face, not even the shadowed lines on the man's cheeks seemed out of place on him. As he noticed pale lips slowly curve upward in some semblance of a smirk (because it couldn't be a grin, the word just didn't fit it), he realized he'd been staring, and immediately backed off a step, only to almost stumble off the edge of the pier again.
That strong hand gripped his wrist again, and this time he found himself tugged against a solid chest, something murmured above him (voice like liquid fire and silk in his ears and over his skin that sent a shiver down his spine) that didn't quite sink in for a moment in his embarassment.
Forcing his emotions down, everything started to fall into place, however, and he tried to shove the man away.
'I didn't expect to find you here, Sasuke...'
"Let me go!" he growled, struggling in the grip that didn't seem to want to release him. "You're that guy from the subway the other day! You werewatching me!" he hissed, digging short, blunt nails into the man's forearms through the thin silk shirt he wore.
"You're a fucking stalker!" he spat, finally managing to wrench himself from the grip that had slowly loosened as he spoke. "Who the hell are you?!"
He watched as a cascade of emotions flickered briefly in obsidian eyes before suddenly they became closed off like the slamming of a door. "You don't remember..." that voice spoke, without enough inflection for him to tell just what the man was feeling.
"It's been no more than five years and you don't remember me at all... They did this to you," the man almost spat out the word 'they', and Sasuke could almost feel the disgust for whoever 'they' were. Again, the man moved toward him, and he was tugged close again, frozen at the touch of fingertips on his cheek, brushing a strand of hair from his face. "They made you forget, but I'll make you remember," were the words breathed against his skin, a warmth in the chill of the evening and the sea breeze.
"What are you-" Lips pressed firmly against his, and his head spun, a warm tongue slid past his defenses and he felt his knees start to weaken. He couldn't think to question that he didn't even know this man that was kissing him, who had stalked him, who knew his name and where he lived (Itachi was what the letter had said, that had to have been from him, he was certainly cunning as a weasel), because the feel of it was overwhelming him. It felt like this was something that had been missing for a long, long time now, and as suddenly as it had started, it was gone.
Fighting to catch his breath, Sasuke took a step back again, even though his body felt as though it wanted to collapse in this stranger's arms. Distance was safe, kissing a stalker on the pier in the middle of the night was not safe. He tried to calm his swiftly beating heart and steady his legs, finally looking back up at the man and asking again, "Who are you?"
"Someone you should know quite well," came the calm answer, to which he clenched his fists and opened his mouth on a retort about how that didn't even answer his question, only to be interrupted again by a card shoved in his face and the other's words.
"Uchiha Itachi," the man said, the hint of a Japanese accent lining the words, and it felt like coming out of a trance. He blinked once, twice, and when he looked up from the card in his hand, he was alone on the pier, wondering just how long he'd been standing there staring at the stiff piece of paper with its neat printed letters and an elegantly scrawled 'I'll be in touch, but do call' in the upper right corner.
Something felt a little different, a little clearer, but he couldn't pinpoint just what it was. Feeling lightheaded and just a little out of it, he made his way back to his car, taking three tries to get the door open (on one of which he managed to push the panic button) and missing the buckle on his seatbelt at least as many times before it clicked into place.
He tried to start the engine while it was already running a few times before he realized his mistake, backing out of his parking space and heading back toward home with just as many questions as he'd had when he arrived, though now they were all of a completely different nature.
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Sasuke woke to the sound of the landline ringing, groaning at how bad his back felt from passing out on the couch the night before. He barely remembered making it home, and he was sure that it had been well past midnight when he had flopped down on the couch and promptly fallen asleep.
He heard the answering machine pick up and a bad recording of his voice declaring to the caller that "I can't make it to the phone right now, or I'm not here. If you're a telemarketer, shove it up your ass, anyone else leave a message." He inwardly cringed at the fact that it had been the same for the past two years, and he'd implimented that one once he'd realized that it just depressed him every time the one of his mother played. He'd gotten a few scolding messages from distant relatives about it after that, but they'd long since left him alone.
He rolled over and curled around one of the couch pillows, hoping that the caller would just hang up, but unfortunately, instead of a click and a beep from his answering machine to tell him the caller had done just that, the most grating voice possible came over the speaker.
"Hey, Sasuke, wake up you bastard!"
Sasuke just groaned, rolling into a sitting position and rubbing at his eyes, hoping Naruto would hang up soon.
"Hey, listen... um... About last night..."
Oh, great. Exactly what he didn't want to think about.
"I... I'm sorry. Hey Sasuke, are you there? Please pick up, I really am sorry! God you can even call me a moron, I know I deserve it! Please just pick up, Sasuke..."
Heaving a sigh, he stood up from the couch, moving toward the bar where the only house phone was located, hesitating with his hand over the receiver.
"Sasuke, please... I just... I'm so sorry, I know I shouldn't have done that, I... Y'know I... You're probably not there, so sorry for leaving a long message just call me back, okay? I'm so-"
"It's fine, Naruto," he cut the blond off, receiver cradled against his shoulder as he leaned against the counter.
"Sasuke!"
"I said it's fine, don't worry about it, you were drunk, I overreacted," he offered, wondering what he was going to have for breakfast as he checked the time on the coffee pot. 9:57. After a moment of silence, he was starting to worry that Naruto had hung up, and he was about to ask if he was still there when a relieved sigh came over the line.
"I really am sorry," Naruto's voice told him, yet again, but even over the crappy phone line he could practically hear the tension and worry the blond was feeling just fade away. "Hey, you wanna hang out today? I'll buy lunch! We can go see that new horror movie they've got playing at the Cinemark downtown!"
Rolling the idea over in his head for a bit, Sasuke nodded to nobody. "Yeah, sure," he answered, remembering what had happened last night after he'd left the party and realizing that a distraction was exactly what he needed. "Meet me over here about eleven."
"Alright! You better have a place to eat in mind, cause if you don't we're going to that sushi bar that serves that awesome ramen and you can pay for your own damn sushi!" He imagined Naruto pumping his arm in the air in a sign of victory, letting a slight smile tug at the corners of his lips.
"You'd better dress decently, idiot," he shot back, just to hear the blond's indignant squawk about how his fashion sense was 'just fine, asshole!', before muttering a 'see you then' and hanging up.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the card the man had given him last night, flipping it over in his fingers. His eyes absently scanned the small text and the elegant handwriting before, with the memory of lips and tongue and coldhot skin and depthless eyes, he slammed it down on the bar in frustration. By the time he got back from spending a day with his best friend, the ceiling would know everything that tiny card had to offer about the negotiator who, by chance or something else, was simply listed as 'Itachi', but who apparently was some relative of his he didn't even know.
Well hey there. Been a little bit, huh? Hope you and the review button get to know each other a little! Let me know how you think things are flowing. I think I've got it down now, but I'd like some input, really, since I'm still not sure if it's moving too fast. Hope you enjoy! The next chapter might take a while, too, since I only have a vague idea for it and it'll have a lot to do with characters I'm not so confident writing.