So here they were.
And everything was safe right now. Hinata's family wasn't back just yet. The world was far away.
But Sasuke was going to have to deal with goddamn Naruto. He couldn't push that insistent, loud, irritating thought away. Naruto was as bright and obnoxious as ever, shouting in his memory.. and he already had a headache, just thinking about it. Or maybe that was his late-arriving hangover, but either way, Naruto was a intolerable pain in the ass and Sasuke was going to have to not only talk to him, but listen to him, and explain to him...
And maybe, on the other hand, Sasuke could just convince Hinata to call Sakura, convince Sakura to not tell Naruto anything, and then just have Sakura come over... But then Sasuke would have to deal with Sakura.
He was thinking of this while Hinata slept in his arms. He was trying to be annoyed, but it was difficult when she was so close. The room was drenched in sunlight and there were sparrows, tiny little quick-moving balls of fluff, hopping all over the windowsill. Sasuke could hear them raising a high-pitched racket through the glass. He couldn't be angry.
Up until now, since the beginning of time, when Itachi had ripped the entire world apart, Sasuke had depended on anger, let it keep him alive. Like a second heartbeat. Rage had plenty of utility in Otokagure, it was a wall of flames Sasuke could hold behind himself and Orochimaru. He could protect some small part of himself that way.
Forever. As long as he stayed angry, and stayed empty.. and just hated Itachi with everything he had, then things would be all right. That is, they wouldn't get any worse. Things were never all right, and never had been all right.
Hinata would have stayed asleep, probably, long enough for him to work himself into a good satisfying rage.
But rage was quickly becoming useless here... and he didn't know what he was going to do without pure anger to fix everything for him. Living.. feeling something else.. it meant the possibility of mistakes. It meant he'd have to abandon certainty.
And it was worth it.. she was worth it... he could look down and watch her sleep, feel her heavy, warm press against his body. Her chakra halo was as light and sweet as summer rain..
Maudlin, maybe, to think these things, but she reminded him instantly of better things, comforts that he'd forgotten. She was worth it, but it was going to extremely difficult. And there was no way that he'd be able to do it perfectly.
But... Maybe he was just ready. Maybe he'd been ready to leave that path to darkness for some time. Maybe she was just the reason he needed, when any half-reason would have done just fine. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to cut away from Orochimaru. Maybe.
But the future was too complicated to think about anyway, so he just tried to relax.
They had to wait. He couldn't do much of anything other than just stay with her, and wait for the old woman to come and unseal the doors. There was some Hyuga traditional nonsense about locking down the house for a death in the family. They'd even put a seal on Hinata because they were so paranoid. It was all stupid, but.. well. The sun got to him. Hinata's drowsy warmth, her hair slipping through his fingers- that got to him too.
Daylight was always easier.. no memories. No ghosts.
Hinata woke up and turned herself sleepily in her arms. Her cheek was wet with tears under his lips. Maybe it was wrong. But maybe they just couldn't stop themselves. And maybe it was right. Maybe it was right. Nothing had been right for so long, he wouldn't know right if it stared him in the face, now.
He told her to stop him. It was up to her. This was all her choice. That's what he had decided. He could make a case for simply seeing it through, that to do otherwise would be cowardly.
He was still as difficult and wretched as ever. His head was full of worries.. why couldn't he just relax and enjoy this? It was like he just couldn't stand to feel good, to enjoy anything... And that was the wrong attitude. He had to keep his fool mouth shut, or he really was going to ruin this.
Better to take his own advice. Force his mind into the immediate present. His demanding body, his typically insistent hard-on, Hinata's soft skin pressed to his, her little gasps rippling over him like waves. Making him want to just forget about responsibility, about all that crap- forget it. They could think better of this later.
And she was so warm. She had every pressure point in his body wrapped around her little finger. She stopped crying when he kissed her... that was good enough for him. He'd done so much more with a piece of garbage like Orochimaru, letting Orochimaru crawl into his body and mind and slither around in there. He'd rather lie in Hinata's hands for a while. Maybe she could quiet the ugly hissing voice in his head. Maybe this could actually work, her family wasn't there to make trouble yet. No one was screaming in their faces yet. He didn't have to deal with Naruto yet, he could just lose himself in Hinata. That felt good. He could allow himself to just feel good for a change.. it wouldn't be so wrong.
Maybe it would be right. So... maybe he would just abdicate responsibility... And they both did, and it made him feel free... weightless, almost. Giddy with the naughty thrill of this. He was in bed, half-naked, with the Hyuga heiress.
In bed- naked- with the heir to the entire dynastic Hyuga clan, the Hyuga clan that was bigger and older and more powerful than his own.
Who would have been angrier- his father or Hinata's? It really would have been a huge inter-clan mess if they weren't, currently, both in the headship position for their respective clans.
So. The great noble Uchiha and Hyuga clans of Konoha.. and their future was in the hands of two horny eighteen year olds. Two horny teenagers- busily groping one another with those hands, at that. Pathetic.
But he didn't half-mind.. at this moment.
His father, he thought idly, probably would have been angrier. He could picture his father's face, his father's fury. But yet... it was so far away. It was amazing how easy it was to just relax.. be with her.. once he allowed himself to just stop worrying. As if worrying would change or fix anything. As if somehow everything would fall apart if he didn't hate and worry every second of every day.
But nothing was falling apart right now. Everything was safe. Hinata moved against him, in rhythm and measure, to tuneless memories unwinding in his head. She said that if they didn't stop, if he didn't stop her, then it would be too late. He felt that, somehow, the urgency gathering in her movements. And he'd done this a million times before with a million strangers, it seemed. But it wasn't at all like this. This was new. He'd never been with someone like her before.
The Hyuga heiress... everything he'd ever wanted to be, really, as if perfectly made for him.
And Orochimaru went on, sometimes, about how Itachi had been too much, too distant, too cryptic, too uncontrollable. But Sasuke was perfect, as if fitted perfectly to his whip-hand. You were made just for me, Sasuke-kun.
Well, he'd rather be made for something, anything, anyone else. As if he were just waiting for an excuse. Anything. Anyone. And here was someone who seemed so perfectly fitted to him.
Which was entirely too sentimental. He really should have been annoyed with himself... But he could do that later. For now... he whispered her name into her ear. Just testing how it sounded, when he said it. Hinata. The Hyuga heiress, and the Uchiha survivor.
And there really was something blackly funny about that, two great clans reduced to this. There was something almost intensely arousing about that... her family and his, intertwining. He didn't believe in romantic crap, but he could believe in legacy, and in the normal trustworthy love between committed couples. He could believe in the security of the Hyuga clan. For all it's Byzantine power games, it had endured for more than a thousand years. Something about it, about this, just felt right.
Maybe it was right, like he was just trying to find a way to break down his own walls, any excuse. It felt right.. She matched his movements so perfectly, as if even in this awkward groping, they understood one another. It was a bit like the sixth sense that took over when he was fighting well, when leverage and power and advantage and chakra and everything were going his way. He didn't have to think at all, his higher self just got in the way. His body knew best, he'd trained it to know.
And it knew now, too. It knew the way... it didn't matter that he felt strangely inexperienced. It didn't matter that he didn't have any clue how to be a decent lover or boyfriend.. or whatever he'd be to her now. His brittle sense of pride, which was such a goddamn crushing useless burden sometimes, that didn't matter, nothing mattered. Nothing. Give me an excuse. He was so close to letting go, dizzyingly close to the edge.
Nothing mattered but touching her, trying to show her this feeling through his lips, his fingers. Trying to make her feel safe and wanted. He did want her. He really did like her, more than he would have usually been comfortable admitting. He was dazed, dazzled, by her soft white skin, that deep heat he could feel through her thin panties. Cotton, not silk. She was a practical girl. He just wanted her all the more for it, she was real and safe in a way that he couldn't get enough of.
He really would have never imagined that he'd be in this situation. He thought most of this was bullshit, 'love at first sight'.. utter crap. And they weren't in love, he knew rationally that they were at most in lust, and in like. But he could imagine love coming. It wouldn't be so strange. It would almost seem normal.. natural. Real. Safe. Perfect.
------------------
"Is it strange that I think my father's still alive?" Hinata asked Sasuke, tensely, somewhere in the middle of that long sunny midmorning.
He shifted against her, the sheets rustling slightly. The spiky hair at the base of his neck was tangled in her fingers. They were curled together like that, half-awake. Like the housecats, Hinata thought distantly, when they would curl up together on the wooden floors and sleep in patches of sunlight. Talking felt natural and unhurried this way. There was no pressure in anything. She could just say what she wished. And he would answer, or not. But mostly he did.
"No." he said. He said it wasn't strange at all.
They lay together, warm under two quilts, warm pillows, his arm curled around her, holding her close to him. So close she could feel every move he made. Silence had fallen over the cottage, and there was no one nearby. The ice glittered outside, and somewhere the servants were busy, somewhere her family was crossing borders. But here, it was almost as if they had a small, comfortable universe all to themselves. As if there was just no one else in the world except the two of them..
"I think I do trust you.." she murmured.
He seemed almost embarrassed by that. She felt him tense slightly. She opened one eye, lazy as a cat, and saw a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks. She didn't understand it, he'd been so adored at the academy. Everyone had known his name, and everyone had gasped in awe, when he performed perfectly.. every single time. Hadn't most of the audience at the chunnin exam come specifically to see him fight? But he didn't seem used to being... liked. She asked him, and he said, tightly "It's different."
She didn't really understand that either, and he said, before she could speak: "It's different when it's you, Hinata."
Then he swiftly changed the subject back to her father.
"It never really stops." he said, meaning that none of what she felt now would ever really go away. She'd always have this cold, numb feeling. Even after years.
"It fades." he said, distantly. "Other things get in the way." And he sounded so different when he was relaxed. Almost boyish.
She turned her head up slightly to watch him. She lay on his chest, and he stroked her back, or her hair, idly switching between the two. He was favoring his uninjured arm. She thought that it was silly that she should expect him to sound older.. or, well, the way he did normally. He seemed to fall into a deeper register of his voice, growl and snarl at people. She closed her eyes again. She didn't want to embarrass him by staring that way... and she thought, too, that he must just be very angry. Anger floated around him like tiny plumes of smoke, hidden flames. She sighed. She wished, suddenly, that she could go back to not understanding that, that she didn't have the same dark spot of anger eating at her right now. Smaller, maybe. She'd only lost... well.. both parents. Her mother first, and now her father.
And maybe it was understandable. Who could ever understand how he felt?
But... still. He was the same age as her, once he'd been almost exactly the same, just a child of Konoha. Another young ninja trainee in a academy class. He shouldn't have been that different.
Well.. maybe now she would be darkened and complicated too. She felt a bit like that, as if there was a black tangle of anger set into her now. Something was driving her. She couldn't leave any of this alone. She asked Sasuke about ghosts, and about dreaming of her father coming home. She asked him about what to do when those dreams felt so real, and even after you woke up, you still almost believed that the dead would come back. As if her father really were still alive. That still felt like the only reasonable option. It seemed so crazy, her father.. dead? He was only forty-seven! He'd only had one heart attack before, he was in perfect health. He'd had a small heart problem, maybe.. but no, it just... it seemed so wrong for it to be true.
It was so easy, really, she found, to busy herself with those thoughts.
And maybe worst of all, the thought of the relationship that just wasn't. About maybe having to finally admit that she'd never really gotten that close to her father. Would that be best? Would that be facing reality? She didn't know.. and she felt it would be cruel, somehow, to ask Sasuke.
So she didn't ask. He picked up her mood, but not the specifics. He told her his own stories, in his very precise, direct way of speaking.. stories that sounded a bit more like situation reports, but something in the inflection of his voice gave them life.
It distracted her, and took her a bit further away from the knot twisting in her stomach. She could imagine the journey he'd made, from the massacre to now. Here. He told her about ghosts. And about dreams... and about nightmares. He seemed relieved that she hadn't had them yet, and maybe she wouldn't. Maybe that wasn't her relationship with the dead. She closed her eyes. Imagined the intricate patterns he idly traced on her back. Sharingan, he said, imitating the way she'd felt for his chakra-channels, transferring it back to her flesh.
It did calm her a bit.
"Relax." he whispered.
But she found herself circling and returning to that point. That single point. Her father, and never really knowing him. Never really.. really feeling like she connected with him. Or was with him, at all. And she was crying again...
Sasuke was getting very good at drying her tears. He sighed; and after a moment he said, softly "You wanted recognition from him, and now he's gone and you'll never get it."
Which was exactly it. It still hurt to hear it spoken so directly. She curled herself up tightly against him and pressed her face into the spare, taut skin of his shoulder and collarbone.
She felt him sigh. "Try to relax." he said.
She murmured into his skin. "I'll try..." She felt down for his heart, the steady pulse of blood and chakra. He dragged his hand up the curve of her back, and it made her catch her breath, the way he touched her, the way he ran his hand down her shoulder and forearm, and then gently twined his fingers between hers. "I can't relax when you do that.." she whispered, breathless now.
"Either way." he said, a hint of a smile in his voice.
The sunlight shifted.. and she watched the clouds drift in a sunny blue sky. Her limbs felt lazy and heavy with the sun's heat. There was just no barrier between them, now. Nothing at all. Everything had melted away, even her own shyness. "I trust you." she whispered, again.
She could ask him a number of things, now that talking was easier. She could ask about Team 7. It was something she wondered about, and had for some time.
She was friends with Naruto and Sakura. They were good friends to her. And there was a yawning, bleeding hole right in the middle of both of them. It was something, maybe, that made her have to keep her distance just a bit. She knew it wasn't her business... and she worried that she could do no good, she certainly couldn't fix this for them. It would be wrong to interfere... she wasn't sure, but it didn't seem right to risk it.
Sasuke had been here, now, back home for more than a few days. He had made his decision to stay many hours ago. He had not asked after, or wanted to know anything about Naruto and Sakura. Not once. He said they would come to pay their respects to Hinata, and he would go with them then. She heard no affection in his voice when he said that. Just anger.. and why should he be angry with them...?
Well, she didn't understand. And it really was not her business. She had her own team, and Shino would tell her that it was best to not get involved. Kiba would use slightly rougher language, but he would say the same.
And maybe she would have to answer all these uncomfortable questions herself. Sasuke could read her straight through, he picked up on her changed mood immediately.. and she had to make up a silly excuse. She just told him she was sad about her father. And maybe she was. Maybe she was just expanding that circle of sadness, letting it seek out and touch every other problem she could think of. She said, because she felt close enough to him to do so:
"I don't feel right. I'm not acting right.. this isn't how I should feel."
And hid her face in the covers and the crook of his neck she said it. She whispered the words against his warm flesh. She really wasn't being the way she should be. She should be more stricken by grief, paralyzed with it. Or she should not, absolutely not- feel anger. Because her father was gone and he'd never really let her know him. He'd never been in her reach. And that was a hard red lump of anger deep inside her. It wasn't going anywhere. It felt like it could stay and endure for years, if it had to. Maybe it already had.
And, of course, she was wrong because she was not being a proper Hyuga stoic. Somehow the grief was wrong. She was wrong. But she had always been wrong in the eyes of her family. She'd told Sasuke some of that old, difficult story. She found herself telling him more, and starting to shake in his arms. Maybe it was the anger, she couldn't tell...
But he wouldn't have it.
He wrapped her up tightly in his arms and asked her a series of complicated questions about why she was not a jounin when he thought she was skilled enough to be considered for promotion. And he was so insistent that she had to devote all her attention to thinking over his questions and answering them properly. It was a whole other world that he was asking about, the world outside her family's house. A place where no one knew that she was wrong and weak and just not right. No one knew. No one noticed.
She still found her thoughts circling back. Ghosts. The dead... and what she was meant to do. What would be properly Hyuga? No emotion shown outside the house, certainly. If her father was here, he would frown upon all this crying. He would ask her how this would honor her dead family member, if she was upholding the strength of the house... all these leading questions. That was his way, sometimes, when he was exasperated with her. When he bothered to speak to her at all. To think that he had chosen her after all, it still seemed too unreal. It just didn't have the ring of authenticity.
So in the midst of telling Sasuke about being called up for special-jounin status last year, and opting out, staying with her students, she thought back. She thought into her family's history of death. The way it was meant to be...
And her family was not Shinto Buddhist precisely, but the old country's religion remained in traces. It was the stories of transformation that stayed with her. A fisherman's wife became an octopus. The Hyuga clan leaders before her, her grandmother and her father- they became stars. They were not dead so much as transformed, present and visible, part of her world, but now somehow permanently out of her reach. A feudal lord's daughter was killed by a hunter and became a pond lotus that floated in her father's garden. Hinata's father has gone to the sky. He would always be there, like the lord's flower, but Hinata would never speak to him again, not in this world. The veil between the worlds had shifted. He was changed, forever. She would spend the rest of her life looking up, looking after him. And he would never look back, never again.
She couldn't sort her feelings out at all. The day had been an emotional tangle. She leaned into Sasuke's arms, and kissed the silvery little puckers of scar tissue that dotted his skin. She told him the story about the Hyuga stars, and the transformation. He looked down, and she looked up, and for a moment he held her gaze with quiet consternation, an in-between sort of look. As if he wasn't sure if he liked the idea or not. Part of his eyes said nonsense, but the other part said something else, a whisper of something. He might have been freer once. He might have been less given over to total certainty. She wondered, and settled her fingertips in his hair, watching him back. She wondered if he really had time for any of her flights of fancy.
"It was different for us." he said distantly. "We didn't have any legends like that."
Eventually he broke the eye contact, naturally. He sighed and closed his eyes, settling back against the pillows. He told her about the dead Uchiha. He spoke and she could hear him avoiding some bloody, ugly patch of the truth. But she didn't prod him. She just rested her ear on his chest and listened.
And the afternoon unwound that way, and she found herself deeper in his arms, kissing him and not wanting to stop. Somehow it became almost right, almost right in so many ways that went beyond simple morality. Or what her father would want her to do.
She needed to let go of her father to do this. She needed to just turn her thoughts for a moment. There would be time, anyway, to mourn the dead properly. There would be days of family ritual, as soon as the council returned and reassembled. So she could let go... she could. And she did.
To just focus on her body, on physical reality.. or maybe on his body, on his presence, right beside her... He had beautiful eyes. She wasn't sure if that was something a boy would want to hear, whether he would consider it a compliment or not.. but she preferred them when they were dark. The sharingan was definitely a bit scary-looking at the best of times. She could feel his intentions, that was basic Hyuga byakugan jutsu. But those slow-turning red wheel-eyes...
She tried to tell him that she wasn't frightened, when he saw clearly that she was. Talking wasn't as hard as it once had been, but it was still awkward. She hurried to get back to what felt better, just kissing him. She knew that they could talk later. For now...
Now. She whispered, and she wasn't sure if she could just take these remaining scraps of clothing off. She already was flushed and full of naughty indecent thoughts. There was something forbidden and sweet about thinking things, imagining the parts of a man's body that just weren't meant for polite conversation. She was a child in the eyes of her family, once who was not taught their ways and rules of procreation. Not just yet. They would tell her what they wanted when it was time. Or else she was a tool, and this was a strategy, a way to distract her target so she could cut his throat.
She was flushed pink, as if lightly bruised from all these hard little kisses. Sasuke was bending over her breasts, and her nipples tingled, all wet and suddenly chilled in the cold air, as he pulled away from one to lean down to the other. She felt him exploring her, tasting her.. and she was sighing now, those sighs were turning to little whimpers. She wanted to take those cotton boxers right off him, she could feel him right through them. She wanted to touch the flushed sensitive parts of his body, and it was acting, not thinking, that got it done. "Now.." she whispered. And instead he reached down between them, and stripped her soaked panties from her.
She opened her eyes in time to see him leaning down into the covers to untangle them from her ankles, then he smiled at her, with a strange mix of almost-amusement and simple relaxed happiness, fleeting as it was, the same cast of sadness faded out like his sharingan, just to a chakra shadow. Still there, but hidden. He pulled her rolled up panties out from under them, and summarily tossed them over his shoulder.
"All right." he said. And it was both acknowledgment and permission. Hinata watched him, the faint flush that was on him now, on his pale thin cheeks, the hard facets of muscle in his arms and across his chest, his white skin turning almost pink in places, as she watched him breathing hard. He took her hand in his, guiding her.. and there was just nothing more to say.
She felt her way down his body. His skin was stretched just a bit more tautly than her own, across bone and muscle... the strange mixture of pointed hardness and soft skin as her hand found one nipple, and she saw him struggle briefly to catch his breath. He blinked, and the sharingan was back, slowly turning, as she traced around the little hard point with her finger.
As he held very still, just the distant hammer of his heartbeat that she could feel through his chest, then down the tight cords of his stomach, where he quivered ever so slightly as she felt lower, and lower, and found the waistband of his boxers, damp with their mingled sweat.
He needed to get up off her slightly to allow her to do this, and he did without being asked, instantly. He shook the covers off his shoulders and climbed to his feet, and she moved with him to her knees, and pulled his boxers down. Her hands were busy with the fabric, it was only her lips that were free. He was hard, she had felt that. But it was another thing to see. It was probably improper of her. But she was curious. She wanted to know what he felt like, tasted like. He was so hardened, just in his manner, his way of speaking, the person he was. She saw glints of softer things beneath that, but she wanted to see more. She wanted to feel him shake under her the way she'd quivered under him. He was standing and she couldn't wait. She just took him in hand, let his boxers fall to his ankles and felt him along his full length, felt him react- instantly. She closed her eyes and found his swollen tip with her lips, by heat behind her eyelids, the flicker of her byakugan painting him in hot oranges and swirling pinks. She heard him gasp as she rubbed her lips all over him, working up her courage.
Justifying this to herself...
It's wrong, she thought, but some part of her wanted to be wrong in exactly the way she wanted. If she was already wrong, she didn't have to wait and she didn't have to be polite, and she didn't have to come up with a justification for just being so curious, and wanting him so much. .
"Hinata." he seemed to mean that to be stern, but he couldn't manage it. His voice caught in his throat. His hands settled on her shoulders, stroking her, she could feel him just touching her the way she was touching him, exploring, feeling for feeling's sake. One of his hands lightly stroked her hair, she could feel that he was being so careful, trying so hard not to grasp her tightly and hurt her.
But he said again "Hinata.." Like he had to make his own justifications to himself. She wanted to take him away from that outer world where they had responsibilities and their pride and her own sense of decency, whatever he'd been taught in his clan about what high-born Uchiha did and did not do. What was allowed... she wanted to shut that out, the way it was suddenly so far away for her. "Hinata." he whispered, and his swollen flesh was taut, but silken here, almost delicate. She grazed it with her tongue. He stopped arguing instantly.
-------------------------------------
Orochimaru's spinning gold hypnotist's disc.
What a stupid affectation that was. Sasuke sneered at him. Orochimaru just smiled, displaying second and third rows of elegant fangs, and told him to watch carefully. Sasuke had assumed that there would be a finality to Orochimaru's use of his body. That is, it would be clear when Orochimaru took him. He would be killed, Orochimaru would wear his body like an expensive tailored flesh suit.
But it wasn't like that. Orochimaru slipped in and out of him, nothing final or simple about it. There was no firm line on where Orochimaru's influence ended and his control began. Just because you saw him walking around in another body did not mean that he wasn't already in yours.
So Sasuke tested himself- his motives, his clumsy little feelings- for Orochimaru's shadow. There were probably many reasons why he should not have chanced lying down with Hinata.. but maybe... He sensed that maybe Hinata wouldn't be very interesting to Orochimaru. He suspected that it was the cursed blood that drew the filthy old snake, the byakugan was too clean. The Hyuga were too much in the light. Orochimaru wanted other despicable creatures that scuttled around in the darkness. Maybe Orochimaru would be interested in tearing Hinata's pretty head off her shoulders just to annoy Sasuke,..
Annoy. Orochimaru would think of it that way. Ah, I've killed her, Sasuke-kun. I know it's annoying, but...
He held his temper in check. That fucking snake. But it wasn't as if he was in any way surprised by the sheer depth of depravity Orochimaru could sink to. So. Yes, Orochimaru might find it amusing to kill her. As a joke, maybe. That would be very like him.
But beyond that... Sasuke couldn't imagine Orochimaru working up much enthusiasm. The Hyuga would just be so boring, wouldn't they? And besides, killing everyone Sasuke had ever looked at twice was so passé, wasn't it? It had been done. Orochimaru loved novelty above all. Sasuke figured Hinata would not be in direct danger, the Four would come for him and not bother with anyone else. As they had before.
Meanwhile, Hinata was looking for reasons to not be sad about her father. That is, to compartmentalize the grief. He understood that. They only had this time. Her family would return...
And while he was still the same wretched missing-nin, still sore and still as pissed-off with the same rivers of anger running through him...
...it wasn't nothing, to be here. He was alone in privacy and comfort with a girl who he could imagine- quite clearly- falling in love with.
Though, he didn't feel that he 'fell' in love with anyone. He simple came to the state of loving them. He didn't see anything particularly magical about that, it was just a fact of life. Love was natural and normal. He wasn't in the mood to waste time pulling that nonsense about it not existing, or somehow deciding that he was exempt from it. He'd had ten years of bitterness to really enjoy the masochistic thrill of that. But he was sick of it now. It was empty. He just didn't feel like ruining this. Whether through a thoughtless word to her, or through his own bad attitude. It wouldn't take much angry sullenness from him to do it. And it would be pointless- so that was that.
He could only go through the motions of thought so many times. He was a traitor, he was a disappointment, he was lesser and smaller and forever-weaker than Itachi. He was dirty now, from Orochimaru's hands and his own twisted-up thoughts. He was soiled right through with anger. And...?
Maybe what he had to do was accept this and choose to live on anyway. Maybe that would be growing the hell up.
He already knew that he had to take responsibility...
...and he would. He'd go and take whatever punishment they'd hand out.
But he didn't have to let that ruin this either. Nothing he did or said here would change that. If he let himself enjoy this.. or if he insisted on sulking and working himself into a rage? It would change nothing either way, he wouldn't become somehow less guilty if he denied himself this.
But...
All you'll ever want is me.
Orochimaru seduced with sweetness, and with whatever you desired. The irony was that it felt like freedom. It felt like you were finally getting where you wanted to go, everything was just starting to go your way; and that's exactly how this was, too. Orochimaru's hands were, after all, tended and manicured and kept silky-soft. Like a princesses, even a kunoichi's hands were still pockmarked and callused. There just wasn't any time for useless beauty in any ninja's life. Maybe in passing. Orochimaru seemed to want to turn himself into a kabuki mask, a doll, a painted marionette, dancing far beyond. Flaunting immortality.. like he was just so above it all.
So. Sasuke didn't resist him. No more than usual, just token resistance. A glare, snarls. Just enough to let Orochimaru know that Sasuke didn't like him- and Sasuke thought all of this was absolute bullshit. But that done, he would just collapse back into Orochimaru's arms. And Orochimaru would have his way. Always... and it would be good, better than anything he could do with his own hands. He didn't want to allow himself much pleasure, ever, anyway. He mistrusted it. But Orochimaru bathed in pleasure and frolicked in pleasure for his own sake. So what he did was always, always overwhelming and would sate deep hidden desires and hungers Sasuke didn't even know he had. Or maybe Orochimaru had created them for the occasion. Nothing would ever feel like what Orochimaru did.
Surely not Hinata's hands. Soft, and small. Warmer, and they were alive, Orochimaru felt half-dead, half-reptile. But Hinata was whole and reassuringly normal. So he wasn't complaining... He would never have to think that maybe her tongue would start coiling around his erection and squeezing him half to death. She wouldn't prick him with senbon at key moments of ecstasy. She wouldn't do that thing with the pressure points, holding down the root chakra's stop button at the exact wrong moment. Which was something Orochimaru, not surprisingly, delighted in.
But. He could ruin this or he could enjoy it. And he was tired, bone-tired of pain and hate and feeling horrible for it's own sake.
And...
He'd spent a lot of time dreaming about her. Wondering.
Maybe 'dreaming' wasn't the right word. Lusting after her, to be exact. But it wasn't wasted time, he certainly had nothing better to do, not while he couldn't train without wrenching his stitches open again. And he was tiring of rage, tiring of replaying the same old sharingan-memories, all of Orochimaru's various annoyances and games. Better to think of something enjoyable for a change. Like a shy and beautiful girl who seemed to like him back...
He really hadn't thought he'd get anywhere. He wasn't going to talk to her, he was hopeless with people. He could have done just about anything through violence. but he didn't have a clue how to act with girls.. or with anyone he didn't want to kill, defeat or learn from.
He thought those overly-friendly girls from the academy, the ones who watched him all the time and made him suspicious, would probably have nothing to do with him now. He was a missing-nin. The heir of the house of Hyuga would either know better, or her family would put a stop to it very quickly...
But he could dream all he liked. The medicines and teas the old woman pushed on him made him drowsy, and for a while he imagined turning her over gently on the sheets of her bed beside him. He'd kiss her, and she'd move against him. Her hot little fingers would press against the small of his back, her arms would curl around him. She'd be warm inside, wet and silken... She'd be overwhelming in her delicate prettiness, the hard contrast of her white skin against his.. and the rest of the fantasy would unwind, he'd have to clean up after, and then he'd put himself back to bed and feel vaguely guilty about it.
But now that it was actually happening...
She surprised him. He wasn't sure what she'd be like.. would she be too shy to do anything? Would she be frightened? He didn't think so, he saw hard lines of maturity in her. She was innocent maybe, but she was not a child, maybe she'd become more of an adult than he had. Maybe she'd had no choice but to do so.
Still.. she seemed shy. Would she be demure.. would she blush and want him to lead the way? Would she want to be persuaded.. seduced...? Would she be completely inexperienced and uncertain? He hadn't quite expected her to just grab him, but well...
He had to find something to hold onto, otherwise he was going to fall off his feet.
But there wasn't anything he could grab, the futon shifted under his feet and he wanted to relax, to just concentrate on.. on.. well, the fact that she was touching him. And he didn't want to have to constantly readjust his balance. And he was cold, the heat wasn't on. He shivered- hard- and that got her attention. He grabbed her- clumsy with haste, his hands were sweaty suddenly- and got them both back under the covers. He hoped she would just keep doing that, please keep doing that. Asking her to keep going would require thinking. He got about as far as gasping her name, crushing her into his arms. Her cheek brushed against his chest, and her hair fell over his skin- silken. Cold and silky, exactly as he'd imagined. The soft skin of her cheek was chilled, but her lips were soft and warm and she was wrapping her tongue around him- he couldn't think.
Thinking was overrated anyway, he thought, inhaling hard, quick breaths of cold air.
It meant something, somehow, to have this done by someone he actually liked, for a change.
He had to remember not to touch her head, pull her hair, push her to take him in.. ah, she was just licking him, and then shallowly sucking on him at the very tip... it took so much self control. Until he realized that she'd pinned his legs under her arms and he had no leverage. None. If he tried to do anything, she could break his hold.. and he was in a way, completely helpless. How many blood vessels swollen heavy right now, between her lips? That would be one way for a kunoichi to off their target. Ah, it was fucked-up, thinking about her killing, her killing him with soft hands, her silky little tongue. Just stopping his heart. He wasn't thinking. He couldn't think. He could just feel and fantasize and make it feel so much better, thinking about her. Iron fists and satin gloves.
Actually, this was probably a bad idea. And it hadn't been his idea, he'd just been trying to get his damned clothes off. He'd missed that hint of nerve in her soft eyes, maybe. He'd sensed that she might have a dark current of desire or two. She'd clung to him and shivered in his arms and moaned softly as he teased her little nipples to stiff points... they weren't pink as he'd imagined, more a sort of lavender. But otherwise, he'd imagined correctly. And Orochimaru and all that, it was just words now. It was far away, because he couldn't think and all there was to focus on was her hands- doing something to the base of his penis now- he couldn't breathe. She had vanished under the covers, and he was having a hard time connecting the soft warm lips gently teasing him, the iron hands holding him steady, all of it... with the soft-spoken demure girl he'd laid down with.
He had to tear the covers back, pull her up to him, get her under him- now.
He did before he could think better of it. Fine, he wasn't thinking.
They'd been under the covers the entire time.. he'd felt every part of her... well, almost every part. He hadn't actually seen her.. but he felt her graceful limbs, strong with sleek muscle. She was still soft, though.. he couldn't get enough of that. Softness.. heavy-breasted...and he was interested in particular in this other part, a bit lower, just beneath the slight softness of her stomach, the inviting softness of her thighs. He'd fantasized about getting his hand down between them at some length... sweating just a bit harder now, thinking about it.
She whimpered- literally whimpered- his name, and he wasn't thinking at all anymore.
He was buried in her flesh, her soft breasts pressed to his cheek, his hands slowly slipping between her legs. He listened to her breathe, and start to come close to little moans. When his fingers finally found wetness, and heat, and incredible softness, softer still than the rest of her flesh, she was crying out fully. He hadn't even begun, he'd barely touched her. Maybe he wasn't messing this up after all... but he couldn't see anything. He wanted to see.
So he pulled the covers back, parted her legs so he could see what he was doing. She was more a pale lavender here, too.. glittering wetly and spread open like the petals of a flower for him. She arched her back and gasped as he pressed the flat of his thumb to the little nub of flesh, pinkish here, a swollen pink. Her heart was racing so fast, he could feel her pulse through the underside of her thigh, where his fingers sank just a bit into her flesh. He was trying to hold her still, reassure her, make her feel protected. But he needed both hands. And as she whimpered and gasped and quivered under his fingers, he touched the outer folds first, the ones that were like the rest of her outer flesh. Then the inner ones, which had a strange, enticing difference in texture, like very expensive fine silk. Slowly. There was no need to hurry. And she was moving under him by then, pressing herself against his fingers, so he had to pay attention and do this right.
Not that he really knew what he was doing.
But she was very responsive. Very responsive. He allowed himself one smirk over that. He wasn't ruining this after all.
And he also thought that a sensible girl like Hinata- and beautiful, and strong, and dignified- would have had absolutely nothing to do with Itachi.
Itachi would have never gotten this far.
Which was a stupid and childish thought, but Sasuke was still certain it was true, and he did take some pleasure from that. This is mine. Itachi could never have this.
And then she was moving harder, her little cries rising and he had to really pay attention. He had to hold her still because she was quivering so much, she'd squirm right out from under his fingers.
Strange that she came so hard, the sleek muscles in her thighs bowstring-tight under his hands as he pressed the tip of his tongue on that slippery little nub. He hadn't expected that, somehow.. so much tension and force coming from her small white body. Her little hands were white-knuckled on his shoulders- carefully avoiding the wound, but she was still almost hurting him, he might actually have bruises from this... From her hands. He found that... Amusing? Arousing? A bit of both, maybe.
That accomplished, he kissed her flushed forehead, and then felt her heart pounding through her throat, when he bent to kiss her there too.
And she reached down, her little hands stroking him in slow circles that reminded him of water, a pebble dropped into the stilled water of a koi pond. She wrapped her soft hands around him and he let her, and let go.. and didn't worry too much about staining her hands. He clenched at the pillows because he didn't want to leave any marks on her.
He realized he only had sharingan-memory of her breasts, the delicate pinkish folds of her inner body. He tried to keep his eyes open to watch her as she watched him. It was more intense that way, somehow, to really realize that she was doing this, connect those soft hands to her, the quiet mystery and dignity of the girl he was just starting to know. But he couldn't keep them open. He bit his lip and didn't really think twice about it, didn't remember fast enough that it was an old Orochimaru-habit, because Orochimaru liked to tease and torture until he broke his vow of silence. It was the same hard electrical jolt as usual, the same shower of white sparks, an instant or two of pleasure.. good enough. Better, maybe... different from doing this with a stranger. It meant something, that he liked her.. and his body knew and responded, singing like a million perfectly-tuned lute strings, or like the thousand running sparks of chidori, flickering hard for one sharp second-
-and then he was limp and sticky in her hands and he looked down.. and felt a bit ashamed of himself.
Hinata didn't seem to care. She just wiped her hands off on an edge of the sheets, and settled down into his arms. She was relaxed now, he noted, and felt a bit smugly responsible for that. He could maybe make her feel a bit better...
It went all right. It wasn't half as awkward as he'd have thought. But something felt a bit perfunctory, as if they were just executing a kata, together. He was conditioned by Orochimaru.. he'd tried to move out of that, but maybe it was all still muscle memory at this point. She was trained. She'd touched him with what she'd learned from those secret kunoichi techniques. Or so he'd guess. They both moved in ways they'd been taught by others.. and it would take time to really make this their own. But it wasn't a disaster. And that was something, given his track record with girls.
With anyone, really.
"How was that?" he asked her, and felt just a bit more smug when she murmured in soft, drowsy approval. She was tucked into his arms, and she felt warm and safe. It was all right after all. This part. The other part, with her family, with the ANBU...?
Well, it would all be in his face soon enough. He could enjoy this just a bit more, for now.
And then the old woman barged in again...
But he'd enjoyed himself for a while. He'd gotten Hinata away from the things that he knew he couldn't solve for her. For just a moment... but that was good enough for him.
----------------------------
Maybe the first time was supposed to be special. Hinata wondered if she should have slowed it down... or done things a bit more carefully. She'd sort of just... lost herself, rushed forward. She hadn't stopped herself. She asked Sasuke if it had been improper and he laughed, a velvety ruffle of his throat under her cheek, where he held her in the crook of his arm, his warm strong chest under her ear.
"It was fine with me." he said. He was running his hands methodically through her hair, as if he wanted to touch every part of her. And she wanted it.. she wanted this. She wanted to be his.
"Of course." he said, almost amused, almost-teasing, when she asked him if he would want that. "I'd rather be yours than his." His sannin-sensei... and even as they whispered now, so close, the dreamy afternoon was dissolving. She could see the fading gold slant of the sun that fell in hard slices on the end of the futon, their covered feet and legs curled together. She closed her eyes and thought that this didn't quite feel real.. or it felt very real, but it almost didn't quite seem like the same life she'd had, before. When she'd taken her enforced day off and ran through the forest. When she'd thought of him as a dangerous stranger... It was real but it was strange. And she didn't know how things would be, now. Would things change? She thought they would almost have to.
They both felt the chakra flare as the cottage's door seals were torn off.
Hinata imagined it, she'd seen it done before. Miya, or any family retainer, any higher-ranked member of the retainer caste of the house, they would clap their hands. The seals would burn and fall away. Sasuke twitched, and seemed annoyed by it. He seemed to suffering from a hangover after all, she saw the sickly blurring of chakra around him. He denied it, of course...
And when she asked him about the seal, he said, almost diffidently "Doesn't hurt." But then he caught her eye out of the corner of his, and looked almost... almost slightly sheepish. As if he saw that she could see it wasn't really true, and acknowledged that, but still had to keep up the facade of invulnerability. Hinata left him alone about it. There was nothing she could do.
Sasuke growled under his breath and sat upright, tilting his head slightly. The sunlight glistened over his shoulder and the messy spikes of his hair. The sun fell over his face, finding a strange deep redness in the edge of one eye . The Uchiha still had that strange iridescent quality, maybe, that the Hyuga had. But the Hyuga had no true eye color, just a strange kind of transparency. Hinata watched him for a moment, and then said "It's Miya."
And above their heads, there were very distant footsteps, and the clear voice of the old cook, ringing "Ok, kids! Time to wake up!" Brusque and strangely comforting as ever. Hinata exhaled slowly. And then she shook off the covers and got up.
"It's time, then." Sasuke muttered under his breath. He seemed to be suddenly in a bad mood. All Hinata could think of to do was to leave him alone. Not talk to him much, not bother him. As he turned to grab his pants from the floor, she touched his shoulder gently, then the tense jagged muscles in his back. His seal was bound up in strips of Neji's shirt, but she could see his whole shoulder and upper arm swollen livid red. It looked like it must hurt a great deal...
But his breathing evened out a bit, and he sighed. He turned and kissed her- businesslike- on the forehead. He seemed distracted and caught up in his own thoughts. Or maybe Hinata was too caught up in her own. She'd danced around these thoughts forever, it seemed- her father and her family and the house.. and Neji and Hanabi.. and Naruto and Sakura.. and the entire village, and being the heir at all. The ANBU and delivering Sasuke to the authorities without incriminating her family... she sat down heavily on the edge of the futon. She folded and re-folded her fingers together over her bare thighs. She was still a bit wet. Maybe she should have been ashamed.
Sasuke gathered up her clothes and handed them to her. "The old woman can't find us like this." he said. His eyes were squeezed shut against a headache, or irritation. Hinata held out her hands to take her pants and her discarded underwear, her crumpled jacket, the hidden kunai hanging heavily in it's lining. They were close, she thought, watching him glare at the ceiling as heavy footsteps clomped overhead. Closer, maybe, than anyone had gotten to him in a long time. But still, somehow, in the world outside, he would be distant, sometimes. He would be lost in his own anger and darkness. The same way he was before.
He patted her shoulder, and said "Hinata, we have to get moving." He said that a bit more gently. He helped her to her feet, and she leaned into him for a moment. She thought she would like to ask him to come closer. But how could she say that? She couldn't even find the words to ask him why he was this way, why he had to hold himself so distant from everyone.
And I suppose I am no different, she thought, glumly threading her arms into her jacket. She would be polite and behave the way she should, she knew. That was second nature. But behind that, some part of her wanted to curl herself into a defensive ball. She wanted to shut herself up in her room and refuse to see anyone. She didn't want to speak to anyone, have to deal with anyone. She didn't want to have to pretend everything was fine and she was all right- when she wasn't.
And she never would be again. She mechanically put on her clothes. And Sasuke frowned at the door, when a polite knock came. Hinata heard him slide the door back. She heard him talk to Momoe, Momoe's clear and confident voice, and Sasuke's irritated reply "Yes, she's here and she'll be out in a moment." Then he shut the door and turned to make the bed.
Hinata leaned against the wall and felt useless. She ran her fingers through her hair and made it somewhat presentable. She watched Sasuke lean into a gleaming patch of deep gold sunlight to shake out the sheets, and thought that he was so far away. And it wasn't just his own distance. It was her own now too.
She looked at her bare feet, toes a bit purpled from the cold.
They would find another moment to be close, she thought. But not now. She just didn't have any ability to raise her head, say anything, call Sasuke to her side and ask him to open up for her again, just a bit. She thought that he probably would do it, if she asked... but she just couldn't bring herself to ask.
It was only when he turned away from putting the room back in order that she met his eyes. He didn't look surprised at her mood. His ability to pick up on these things hadn't vanished. Though maybe he wouldn't have time to tend to her every minute... And she thought that he shouldn't have to, she shouldn't need so much comforting. It made her look away. She heard his footsteps whisper over the cold stone floor. He didn't say anything. He just gathered her up in his arms and for a moment, caught in their combined body heat, she felt protected, and separated from all these problems. Maybe what she really wanted was to just hide in his arms. Pretend it wasn't happening. Have it be someone else's problem. Someone else could deal with being the heir...
Then Miya rapped her knuckles on the wooden frame of the door, making it rattle. "Come on now, haven't got all day." And the dreamy morning, the strange magic of the afternoon- it was over.
--------------------
Sasuke did not like the old woman.
He really didn't like her.
He didn't even like her when she brought him alcohol.
Which she really ought of have done this time, too. Never mind that he was hungover.. damn it fucking all.
His head was just starting to ring dully as she intruded- as she always did- as loudly and roughly as possible. He had thought that he would not get a hangover this time, that carving out the seal would confuse his body enough that it would just forget to punish him for the vodka. But.. no such luck. Hinata told him that the old woman was dissolving the seals, but it felt like she was ramming a ice pick right through his temples.
"Oh." he said, crossly, because he didn't trust himself to say more.
And Hinata was upset- about her father, clearly. And wasn't that a hellish subject all in itself! Sasuke had never met Hyuga Hiashi, but it was clear to him that Hyuga Hiashi was an intolerable bastard. This was just a statement of fact. Hinata had told him, for instance, the story of Hyuga Hiashi telling Hinata's sensei that he didn't care if she lived or died. Hyuga Hiashi had also smacked Hinata around- which was normal, you could say, for the more tightly-wound members of a ninja clan's power structure. But that didn't mean Sasuke had to like it.
And he did not like Hyuga Hiashi.
That made Hyuga Hiashi a difficult subject. Because Hinata needed to talk about him. She needed to work her own feelings and grief out. But the longer she spoke of him, the more Sasuke wanted to just tell her that her father was a total asshole and her tears and love were wasted upon him.
Of course, he couldn't say that.
But he couldn't stand this! So it was a bad situation, and he had a headache.. and he'd have to deal with Naruto.. and if the old woman said one fucking word about finding him and Hinata in the bedroom...
Instead the old woman said every time I see you I have to bandage you up again. She clucked over the burnt hole in his shoulder. He endured her scolding, and refused to show her any hint of relief when she produced herbal medicines that cut the pain down to a cool ache, something manageable. He didn't thank her. Hinata watched from across the room, guiltily. Sasuke maintained the fiction that yes, he had taken the seal out himself.
"Hmm." the old woman muttered, registering her disbelief of this story.
Then she kicked him out so she could do some mysterious Hyuga family thing with Hinata, and Sasuke sat on the couch upstairs.
He watched dust motes dance in the long slant of sunlight. Outside, ice gleamed at him from deep shadow. A heavy ruffle of snow sat on the windowsill.
No birds now, outside. Silence.
Alone now, with the sun setting behind the frosted-over windows, and that frost turning to threads of fire, Sasuke could hear himself think- again. The old woman's voice grated on him.
And here he was, left alone with the traces of his hangover. A bit of fuzz just forming on his face. His thoughts. The sharingan memories... He fitted his fingers into the seals of the katon fireball. The Uchiha coming of age ceremony, made breath and flame. Instead of the animal names for the seals, he paused and whispered "Hyuga Tetsuya..."
..who had been born with the mutation, the abomination, the strange black-eyed reversal. The sharingan.
Taking his strange bloodline limit, he seceded slowly from the main family. Sasuke had read the history. Committed it to sharingan-memory, to be recited in times like this, when he wanted to steady himself. He could build this temple of names under his feet and try to feel a bit more grounded. He held the tiger-seal, the flame-seal, his hands as two Uchiha fans, holding back the fire, and whispered "Uchiha Tetsuya."
The progenitor and the first. He left his twin brother to continue the Hyuga clan. And so the line went, generations faded away into dust and only remembered in the books of Hyuga, who were more circumspect with their distant history than even Sasuke's own family had been. There were stories in his family of distant ancestors, but nothing even close to these first-comers. Nothing until-
"Uchiha," he whispered "Madera."
Which was a subject not recorded by the Hyuga, a subject hidden carefully by the Uchiha, and a subject Sasuke still had too much of a headache to even consider thinking about.
But even the cursed one had a wife, and children. So the line continued, and the bloodline limit unfolded like a dark poisonous flower, a billion petals unfurling in the mangekyo sharingan Sasuke had glimpsed, blood-red and wet, livid, strange and horribly alive. Like a slick black insect crawling in the raw sword-cut in his father's abdomen, his father's intestines all wet and warm and spilling over the floor- all of it- recorded in loving detail by Itachi's blood-bright eyes. Imparted to Sasuke, in one harsh little second, like a beloved secret.
He still had not told Hinata of this, and he'd have to think a good deal before he decided to. Some things just did not bear retelling.
He didn't think he could get through it.. and more than that, he didn't think words would ever sum up what he remembered now, sharingan-bright. As clear as today's piercing sunrise, just as fresh in his memory. As if it had all just happened hours ago, and the bodies were still lying in pools of warm blood, all over his father's house, his family's compound. It was that close, as if he could reach out and touch it. The memory would always be there.. and it was Sasuke's now. Part of him. Woven into him, blood-black, like intricate stitches pulling his heart closed, so it could continue to beat.
And he could live-
..to kill Itachi, of course.
And for no other reason, at least not until so recently, when Hinata asked and he took her seriously.
Live, she said, and felt for his beating heart. And in her clean, perfect, protected life, couldn't even conceive of the dark secrets stitched into him, like sunken explosives. Land mines. She might put her hand on one, and he might just blow up in her face. He could imagine losing his temper, saying things that just could not be taken back. She wasn't like Sakura. She was fragile. She was pragmatic, she wouldn't take this from him. One harsh word. One hard smack, a backhand. He'd slapped Sakura before, seized her hand roughly in his.. a million times, it felt like. It wasn't what his father would have wanted. It wasn't how his parents would have wanted him to treat a woman. It wasn't right.
"Uchiha Fugaku." he whispered, having kept the line going as his thoughts spiraled through the dark recesses of Madera's and Itachi's secrets.. and his own disgusting bloody secrets too. He'd counted down twenty one generations, through war and shifting times, through five fires that ripped through the Uchiha district, and the sixth time that it was rebuilt. And now, in the hidden winter garden of the house of Hyuga, the dark circle completed back onto itself, he whispered "Uchiha...
...Itachi." And had to fight to get the word out. Had to treat it like a word- an animal- not a person. Because he couldn't handle that. He couldn't handle anything about this, it was a black sinkhole of unstable gravity. It's shockwaves rippled out and threatened to tear apart the facade of calm he had. His Otokagure kabuki mask, perfect and white. But Itachi tore him down to the scared, crying, runny-nosed child he'd been, tearing down the street, just out of his mind with terror. Itachi flicked his eyes and Sasuke was back- in an instant.
And the line ended there. The clan gone, the heir a mass murderer. Only the lesser son now to carry the family name.
He broke the tiger seal to rub his aching eyes, the sharingan-memory was enough, his body ached in sympathy, remembering the mangekyo sharingan, the lost hours of tsukiyomi, the bodies so freshly dead he could still smell the blood... Tsukiyomi, all of the torment that just never was, anywhere but in this bloody hole Itachi had punched in his head.
He'd never been good at stopping himself from thinking useless things.
He thought the same stupid fucking things he'd thought for hours before. He thought that he was no different than before. And he still had done many things. He remembered in particular, the Valley. And leaving Sakura. He'd said something to her.. something stupid. But it was all he could think of to say at the time. His eyes felt like sandpaper when he rubbed them. The old woman's usual hangover-remedies were doing their work, but he was worried. He found himself picturing his father's face. Crystal clear. It shocked him a bit, to see it come back to him so clearly, when his family's faces had begun to recede with time.
His father didn't look very happy with him.
He thought about Hinata and whether his father would be happy with him about that.
But given how furious his father would have been about Orochimaru.. about Itachi.. about all of this mess, Sasuke didn't think Hinata would have made his father any angrier. His father would have already been apoplectic, so it really didn't matter what he did with Hinata. He didn't think his father would have remembered to yell at him about Hinata at all. Why bother? Did it even compare to the high crime of becoming a missing-nin? Betraying the fundamental values of the Uchiha clan? That it was the Third's killer was just the final atrocity, really...
And there he was. Alone in the dying sunlight, crying over the fact that his father wasn't around to yell at him about anything. Not anymore, and never again. And he wasn't sure if he believed in another world at all. Maybe after this life, everything just turned to ashes. Blood and guts and gore. He had to wipe his eyes because he heard Hinata's footsteps, and the old woman's heavy behind her.
Hinata was dressed a bit more formally than he was used to. The old woman had put her hair up, and done something to the swelling around her eyes. Sasuke watched her try for a brave smile, or an encouraging one- and half-succeed. He eyed the old woman and wondered if he should go to Hinata, try to comfort her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to show the old woman this. He hadn't had a chance to discuss it with Hinata, and he felt embarrassed, somehow. He didn't know how to behave like a proper boyfriend. He didn't feel like subjecting himself to the old woman's judgment, Hinata was forgiving, but this old woman didn't pull any fucking punches. He didn't want to hear any of her disapproval right now.
She spoke before he could do anything, which was just as well.
"Seems I'll have to put up with your cheerful face for some time," she mused.
He really didn't like her. He turned his face away from her and watched the dust instead. He didn't fucking like her. She should see that and just leave him alone.
"Seventeen children," she said, and her heavy boots came closer and closer. And then her hand was warm and heavy on his shoulder. He tensed, he didn't like her, but he just.. couldn't push her away. He could of, but maybe he just didn't want to. He didn't want it enough, hatred. He never had. And she said, "Should have been eighteen. That was Hiashi-sama's fault, and mine. I should have tried harder to get through to him."
Then she snorted, hard and rough.. but somehow trustworthy. He didn't think she was going to bullshit him about much of anything. So he lifted his eyes to look at her.
"Wouldn't have listened to me anyway, but I should have tried harder." She said that with a strange, faraway look in her eyes.
Hinata came to him, he was watching the old woman and trying to figure out if he should trust her or not, or if he even wanted too.. he didn't see her coming. He was distracted, and then she was next to him, clutching her warm arms around him, the expensive fabric of her kimono crinkling and probably being creased out of it's proper folds... it wasn't a formal or polite hug at all. He had to stop looking at the old woman because he didn't think he could hold his poker face. This was all so undignified.. but he just couldn't make himself scowl, shove Hinata away, cuss out the old woman- make it stop and go back to hating and having nothing and being empty.
Hinata's pulse whispered through her warm hands, and her cheek was alive and warm against him. Reminding him. You're alive. she'd said.
Weakness, Itachi's voice echoed in his head, but it wasn't enough to make him want to stop this.
And Hinata's tears were hot and immediate against his neck, he had to drop the whole pretense and just take her into his arms. The only way he knew how to comfort her was with physical things like this. Words felt too flimsy and too easily said. But this meant something. He almost forgot about the old woman.
Until she said, gruffly "Should have been eighteen.. but better late than never." Her heavy boots clomped away towards the door. "Hinata-sama, Neji-san is about ten minutes away from the gate. You might want to get a move on, hmm? And as for you, brat," she rapped her knuckles against the doorframe as she passed. "welcome home."