Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn
by Hic Iacet Mori
With love, every stumble is a fall and with every fall you fly—you are endowed with the gift of flight and you may reach past the skies, past the veil of black and white to expose the beauty deep inside. Every word is a promise carried on wings of pure white, and every touch of your wing leaves a little love behind.
It had been days since she had admitted her feelings for his brother, nights since they had slept together. Now, seeing her by the window, naked, wrapped in the gossamer whispers of vermilion drapes and silver moonshine, Sasuke wanted to tell her what he truly felt.
It was the first time they slept together since that fateful night, the first time since they slept together that she didn't went back to sleep because she had chosen not to. It was a night of important firsts and more than their significance, Sasuke was overcome by how natural everything was.
Seeing the stars tangled in her hair made what they just did all the more real, all the more true—there were no shadows to hide from, no bedsheets to take cover from, no red pillow to stand between his reality and her dreams. She was naked and she was gorgeous with her faded scars and his vivid marks, and his mouth was too dry because the vision of her was so blinding and all the words he wanted to say had bottled up in his throat and she was so—fucking—beautiful.
And he was afraid to breathe, afraid to speak, because even a whisper of a voice would spoil the tranquil beauty before his eyes.
Sasuke closed his eyes, her glowing figure forever imprinted in his mind. The strength of his emotions overwhelmed him. He remembered the image of her—her head tilted up to the night skies, her sun-woven hair tumbling past her shoulders, the red laces parting her hair threatening to come loose—and his heart swelled inside his chest and threatened to explode. It alarmed him, these feelings. He wasn't used to them. And yet, and yet—
He swallowed.
—he was utterly terrified but he had never felt so sure in his life.
Sasuke shifted, pushing up from his sated position on the bed. He could feel them all at the same time. Fear. Courage. Hope.
It was the sensation of falling. It was the certainty of flying.
Sitting on his brother's bed, black sheets barely covering the milky whiteness of his skin, Sasuke opened his eyes to the girl now watching him behind her closed eyes. Had she closed them when he had, perhaps to follow him in his dreams? Or maybe she was dreaming he was someone else, again?
He didn't care. Suddenly, it just didn't matter anymore.
His mouth parted. His dark eyes spoke. His lips moved to follow, his truth on the tip of his tongue.
She moved, a graceful flame on a candle. He watched her light cross the shadows. His stomach clenched. His heart raced. He spoke.
A kiss on his forehead and the silence sang uninterrupted.
She had never kissed him before.
It was a night he would never forget.
Sasuke was ready to go to her room when she came to him, a wandering phantasm at midnight, when silence stood between them, thick with expectations. He looked at her in unvoiced query and she raised her eyes to answer, reaching out, touching.
He was the first man to look up the skies and discover it blue.
She had never looked at him before and Sasuke had never seen her eyes like this, so clear like a spring hidden in a mountain of mists. The response in his body was immediate, resonating within him—the electric shock roused him to complete awareness and every nerve in his body stood taut with anticipation. More than physical, her returned gaze struck an emotional chord in him, forged a deeper bond between them—she was looking and seeing him for the first time, not a cast of shadow in her eyes, not a presence of ghosts in her depths, looking and seeing him not as Itachi's otouto but as Sasuke, just Sasuke, and he could see himself for the first time reflected in the blue waters of her eyes.
He was falling deeper into the sea but he wasn't drowning, wasn't dying, because he was trapped in her eyes and she was the air that he breathed.
She reached a hand out and he leaned forward, his body answering the question, the challenge in her eyes.
Can you control yourself? Let me. I dare you.
He wanted to speak up but he might ruin the moment, shattered by his unusual sentimentality at the eloquence in her eyes. It was enough, anyway, for he knew she understood him far deeper than he himself sometimes, and she could read the nuances of his body as if she was reading his thoughts, plumbing the secrets of his soul, as if he was bare for all of her to see.
Sasuke suddenly felt something bubble within him—the desire to laugh out loud, even giggle. He was a fool, an intellectual reduced to poetry to bind her to his world—it still felt unreal that she was standing before him, that she was looking at him for a change. It felt like a dream. Could she really want him?
His heart pounded.
She wanted him. Damn, she was really here and she wanted him. Him!
How far she would go? Would she go all the way? She was completely awake, she was initiating it for once. What's on her mind?
Sasuke raised a hand, longing to touch her, assure himself, and he was surprised when she stopped him. He was clad in his boxers and he wanted so much to be naked in front of her, wanted so much to melt her with his hands, touch her and entice those sounds from her, feel her hands on his body and the reality in her touch. It was stifling in his room and he was aching to touch, to burn, to explode in fireworks, to return from the ashes and do the cycle again and again and again, aching to do all these to her and so much more.
But her eyes were stopping him with their hypnotic blue fire.
She gently pushed him down and he followed, too mesmerized by the intensity in her eyes to do anything else, too short of breath at the thought that she was in control, seizing control. The mere brush of her fingers burned his skin—she was touching him, willingly, tenderly, her hand leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Her teeth nipped on the bare skin of his shoulder and a tremor ran down his body. Her hand drifted down, feather-light, teasing heat on his skin. He clenched his jaw against the curling sensation below his stomach. He had never been this sensitive before.
She wasn't doing much and it was driving him insane.
"You're so beautiful," she murmured on his neck, kissing away the silence that stretched between them. This was the first time she spoke and her words trapped him like the loops of her smile. "Like the snow, white and beautiful. So, so cold. But with the right touch," she sucked on his neck suddenly, harshly, biting and licking the smooth white throat while he spasmed at the shock of pleasure and yelped, "you melt and leave marks on the person who touched you."
He groaned at another harsh suck. His ready insults at being called beautiful died an abrupt death. He didn't know his neck was so damned sensitive.
"Virgin snow, I should say," she whispered. He was concentrating on glaring despite his daze when she blew in his ear. He jerked.
Her hot breath brought shivers on his skin. "Do you know you look like your mother? She's beautiful too." She blew in his ear again. He stifled a gasp at the moist heat on its shell. "She and my mom were tight."
As her tongue entered his ear, twisting around so obscenely, possessively, a hand glided down his chest, fingers teasing his nerves alive. He hissed when she pinched a nipple and twisted it,
all thoughts of telling her he's a guy, dammit, he didn't want his nipples played like he's some girl vanishing like fog at noon, before her mouth suddenly descended and tugged hard. Pain and pleasure coursed through him, warring with each other. Her other hand played with his other nipple, already hard with arousal.
He's not a girl but fuck, he liked it.
And he'd never admit it.
"You're so perfect," she went on, her voice husky and low as she slowly licked a stripe down his chest, "So flawless. No marks, no scars. No physical impurity at all. It's so scary to touch you." Her hands were phantom touches down the planes of his stomach, her questing tongue dipping in his navel. He groaned—it was ticklish yet embarrassingly not so, building something dangerously hot in his belly. He couldn't stop jerking up to meet each thrust of her tongue.
What a tongue.
"Pretty pretty china doll," she crooned, stopping her torture on his clenching stomach, "You look so frail sometimes, like glass, but a right push," a nibble—he cried out, she grinned, "and you cut deep. And seeing you now," her smoldering eyes met his glazed ones, her hand caressing the hard planes of his stomach, another hand hovering down to where it ached so much, "it's obvious you can do more than cut."
"Shut up," he snarled, frustrated. Her words were making him awkward and why was she talking like that? He was beginning to regret accepting her unspoken dare—he didn't think he could control himself anymore, not with how she tempted him. Sasuke couldn't trust himself around her. Had been unable to for some time. "And stop calling me pret—"
His words ended in a gasp when she grinded against him. The pleasure was painful.
"Does it hurt, pretty boy?"
Her grin was evil. He raised a fist to punch her. That wasn't technically sexual, was it?
"Let me help."
She crawled up with unseen speed and devoured his neck, all the while grinding slowly against him. Sasuke figured he would be wearing collared shirts for as long as he lived.
"Your neck is so sexy, d'you know that?" she breathed before diving in with another strong suck. His fist uncurled and he grasped blindly at air. His other hand fisted his bedsheets. He gurgled a string of incoherent curses.
"And you're so pure," she murmured as her lips softened and she kissed up his jaw line. His hands itched to touch her skin. "I don't want to ruin you with my hands, teme, but I'm just a selfish bitch and I want something I can't have."
He opened his mouth to call her an idiot. All his words died at the touch of her lips.
Her lips were a bit swollen and her kiss was soft, a mere press of her lips to his. It was gentle, comfortable, unhurried, and it stayed that way for some time because Sasuke didn't know what to do because he had never kissed anyone on the mouth before. He opened eyes he didn't realize had closed only to be greeted by startling blue eyes shining with laughter—at him. He growled and she took the opportunity to push her tongue into his.
She swallowed his groan as their kiss deepened. He was lightheaded, tasting nothing but the tangy taste of her mouth with its strange sweetness and the salt from the sweat of his skin. She mapped his mouth with her tongue and coaxed his to tangle with hers, and he did so with a touch of hesitation. He gasped at the sudden jolt to his spine.
More.
He began to push back, tentatively at first, then stronger, surer. His traitorous hands found purchase on her hair and he was faintly surprised when she allowed him to loosen the red laces. His fingers threaded blissfully on the sun woven in her hair before sliding down to cup her cheeks, kissing back fiercely, deeply. His heart raced. His chest burned. His lungs hurt.
Shit!
His eyes flew open and he abruptly pulled back. He dissolved in a coughing fit as air rushed painfully back in his lungs. His cheeks, already flushed, burned in mortification as he continued to hack out his innards.
Fuck, that was so... shit...!
He couldn't look at her.
"Breathe."
An impatient hand grabbed a fistful of his hair and her mouth was on his again. Her kiss was brutal, possessing. He kissed back in equal ferocity.
"I've wanted to kiss you for a long time," he growled through their kiss. Her mouth curved and he ravished her smile.
His hands traveled down of their own volition, molding her shoulders to him. She grabbed his hands away without breaking from the kiss, before pulling back and he followed her bruised mouth. He groaned at the hand that was suddenly cupping his crotch. Lying on his back with her seated above him should be made a fucking crime.
He moaned at her husky teasing, gently squeezing him once. "You're so eager, bastard. Where's your control?"
"Stop being a fuc—"
Her stroking hand would be the death of him.
A devilish smile rained kisses down his neck. Her other hand skimmed lightly on his shoulder and she mouthed at the curve where his arm met his shoulder. "I like your shoulders too. So smooth and perfect," she said lowly. "When they slouch in thought, straighten in resolve—especially the way they connect to your sexy, sexy neck..."
She sucked his neck again. Sasuke could see high collars in his future.
A vampire, he thought hazedly. She's a vampire who liked to trap her prey in her words before sucking his blood off.
He liked it. Damn...
"You know what I like more?" she asked. She didn't wait for him to answer, he couldn't do so. She flipped him to his stomach and licked from the base of his spine to his nape. He shuddered helplessly.
Her weight settled behind him and he heard the sound of zippers being opened. A rustling of cloths and he groaned as her breasts crushed down to him. The pressure grinding behind him and the friction rubbing against him were maddening. He was getting desperate.
"Your back," she breathed in his ear. Shivers ran down his spine at her hot mouth, at her soft breasts, at her thighs squeezing on his waist as she rocked slowly, so slowly behind him. He rocked back, hissing as his erection rubbed against his boxers, the bedsheets. Her thighs clenched harder behind him.
"It's all I've ever seen," she went on, unhurried. "For a long time, I wondered why Itachi loves you so much, why he couldn't stop talking about you." He groaned at a bite on his ear. "What did his otouto have that I don't? So I began watching you.
"You're nothing special. Just an attention-seeking nerd who happens to be prettier than any girl. But," she paused as she showered kisses down his spine, "I began to understand. Somehow, I understand.
"I wanted to be like you."
She slowly turned him around. His eyes sought hers and found truth in her eyes. There was also admiration, desire, sparkling along with her secret smile. Her eyes had never been so open and he felt nothing would ever be the same between them.
"Why?" he asked. Sasuke moaned as she settled on top of his straining cock. She was smiling a little too wickedly as she bounced up and down, her breasts heaving along. He would have kicked her for taunting him but she was arching into the air as she squeezed her own breasts, the way she was doing the first night he watched her. She was wicked and she knew how much watching her touch herself turned him on.
His boxers would never be dry again.
"Why?" Sasuke moaned when she leaned forward, rubbing her breasts against his chest. He trembled when she blew at one of the bites she left on his neck.
He felt her smile on his skin. He desperately braced himself. "The first time I saw you," she said, "I laughed so hard."
His eye twitched. She leaned back. There was laughter in her eyes. "Your hair, teme. I remembered what Itachi said about his hair. I asked him why he kept them long, and he said that shorter, they tend to stick up." She chuckled. "A look at your hair and I understood, and imagining him with that hair cracked me so hard."
She nuzzled his cheek. "But on you, somehow, you make it work."
Sasuke smirked. She grinned back. He kissed the cheeky smile until she moaned. He reveled in it.
"Can I touch you now?" he asked through the kiss.
A gleam in her eyes was all the warning he got.
"Dobe, what are youuuuuuuuuuu—!"
His erection, which had become more manageable in the course of their conversation, painfully sprang to life at the mouth descending on his clothed cock. She was mouthing him through his boxers and he jerked wildly—he could feel her grinning around him before his boxers was abruptly pulled down and his erection sprang up.
He hissed as cold air touched his dick. He yelled when her hot mouth took him all in.
Her show of dominance was so fucking hot and he was falling to pieces in her mouth.
Her teeth scraped against his aching length. His gasps turned to groans when she hummed. Her hands lightly fondled his sacs before settling painfully on his hips that wouldn't stop jerking upwards.
"S-Stop," he gasped out weakly. He was too hot and liquid heat was pooling in his stomach—he could feel his balls tightening, his thighs quivering, and it was too damned early and his hands
on her shoulders trying to pry her off weren't working at all.
He yanked on her hair, desperately urging her to stop. She sucked harder, blue eyes challenging, brimming with lustful amusement at the wanton moans that couldn't be contained by his gritting teeth.
"D-Damn it, s—stop—do-do-dobeeeeee!"
She was vicious. Her tongue teased his slit and licked his length and she sucked faster, deeper, harder, harsh and cruel and punishing. Fasterdeeperharderstopdon'tstopstop and he came hard with a humiliating scream.
"Screamer," she rasped. His flushed face reddened, knowing he had caused that rasp. His blush covered him from head to toe at how quickly he came.
He kicked down his boxers to take his mind off his mortifying finish, his lower limbs feeling like jelly. She was still above him and he could feel her stare at his heaving chest.
Embarrassment always irritated him. "What?" he snapped, not looking at her. His eyes widened at a rough hand on his chin and she crushed her mouth to his.
He blushed harder at the bitter taste in her mouth. He was tasting himself on her lips as her tongue delved deeper into his. He growled in shame and pushed back, seeking control over the kiss, over the fire burning between them. She abruptly drew back with a last swipe on his bottom lip and he moaned at the loss.
He was completely in her hands. Since the first time he saw her, that had never changed.
"I like you beneath me like this," she said, her voice huskier with desire, "losing all that coolness you always have."
All protests died as his mouth dried. She pulled down her pants, followed swiftly by her underwear, and she stretched above him, every inch and crevice of her body touching and melting into his. She then sat on his crotch and grounded slowly, a feline smile on her lips, and he choked a scream when she grabbed his red cock and squeezed.
It hurt, getting aroused too fast.
"Since you began this," she said, her ruthless hands running down slowly, squeezing at random times—his breath came in short bursts, his heartbeat in rapid paces "Since this thing, we have between us, I imagined you were Itachi. That it was his hands touching me, his eyes watching me. But," she crawled down slowly, biting lightly on his inner thighs. His thighs quivered, his erection jumping, "your hands are gentler than his. You're uncertain sometimes, almost afraid, then you'd be eager and throw yourself and it makes me wonder, because as much as we love... loved, each other, we always held back." She lifted her head from where she now knelt between his legs. It was a very erotic sight. "Not because we want to, but because we have to.
"It felt—unfair. That you can lose control but you choose not to. That we both longed to lose ourselves but we can't afford to. But it's our purpose and we accept it, so there'll be people like you who can choose."
She smiled. The sun was rising in her eyes and it was beautiful. "But those times, in your arms... you gave me the power to choose, even for a short while."
She crawled forward and kissed him, short and sweet and again and again. "I choose to look at you—and not see his shadow in your eyes," she breathed against his lips, "I choose to touch you, and not feel his ghost on your skin. I choose to kiss you and not taste what could have been." Her blue eyes, entrancing, shining, glowing like sapphires against the velvet night skies, caught him heart and soul. They shone brighter with the sun's kiss in her eyes.
"I choose to love this night," she whispered. She raised herself, their eyes connected, and she slammed down on his cock, gasping in pained pleasure as he choked on a groan, "this irritating—arrogant—awkwardly—caring—bastard called Sasuke."
She clenched her thighs and his eyes rolled to the back of his head at the exquisite heat. It was real and Sasuke never wanted the night to end. For the first time, he hated the inevitability of dawn. "And I hate myself for doing this to you," she gasped out, rocking and squeezing against his hot pulsing length, "for ruining you like this. You're the snow, teme... pure and flawless, wonderful in the light and beautiful in the dark. And me?" She rolled her hips and he moaned louder. "I'm a mud. I'm tracking footprints in your snow and I... I couldn't stop myself, you fucking bastard."
"Then don't" he groaned. "And stop," he gasped at a particular downward thrust—shit, shit, he wanted so much to grab her kiss her thrust into her again and again and again please please please—"downplaying yourself, or just damned talking, usura—" a long moan, "—tonkachiiiiiiiii—"
His dark feverish eyes were eloquent with their pleas. She replied with a harsh kiss.
"Move," she demanded. He reveled at her sharp gasp when he grabbed her hips and thrust up to her. He wanted to hear it again.
He rolled over until he was straddling her, until she was trapped under him. He slowly pulled out and slammed back in, his throbbing cock completely sheathed in her moist heat. She arched up and cried out, her cries turning to moans when his mouth descended on her right breast.
"I like it more, like this," she gasped out between cries, "under you, losing control," a low moan, "together."
His eyes burned hot as he kissed her with everything he had. She was clinging to him, he thought with awe, humbled at how she let him be her gravity as they rose higher and higher with each thrust, each cry. Marveled at her hands on his hair, her lips on his, her legs around his waist, her walls around him giving, accepting, her eyes reflecting the wonder in his eyes. They were flying, falling, floating in between, and he didn't care where he would end up as long as she was there.
As long as she was there, wherever forever took them.
"Together," he choked out, too overcome by his emotions, by his heart nearly bursting to the seams. He needed to say it, again and again, because he knew he would die if he kept it all to himself. He could never live again without telling her those words.
"I love you," he breathed on her lips. "I love you I love you I love you." He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, repeating those words for as long as he could, believing in the power of those words to bind them forever.
He couldn't say them enough.
"Sasuke—"
His glazed eyes widened.
It was the first time she had called him by his name.
"Thank you."
His name was meant to live and die on her lips.
A strangled sob flew out of his chest. Everything was more than perfect and he wanted to fucking cry like the sappy idiot he was. Shit, his sight was getting blurry.
"Naruto."
Her eyes, fluttering shut, shot open in vivid blue. The world froze and they were suspended on air, on the brink of flying, on the edge of falling. He didn't regret calling out her name. How could he, when he tasted heaven with her name on his lips?
White overcame his vision as vivid colors exploded behind his eyes. Her breathless cry was the harmony to his scream of completion.
Shallow pants echoed in the dark room, a room bathed in a loving warm glow, as if golden sprites have taken residence in each nook and cranny of the room, blessing the darkness with a flood of colors and light. It seemed impossible for this room to ever be dark again.
And then, a taunting whisper.
"Screamer."
Dark eyes flew open, narrowing at a foxy smile. The angry blush of red was hidden by his voice.
"I'll make you scream."
Blue eyes met his, challenging. She smirked. His breath came out shorter than they already were.
"I've lots of stamina, Uchiha Sasuke. Let's do those positions you learned from your creepy sex-ed and we'll see if you can make me scream."
He smirked back, insanely giddy, crazily happy. Two months ago and Sasuke would have never imagined that he could feel this way.
And he was very much achingly aroused once again. Her effect on him was devastating.
"You're on."
As their bodies began to tangle once more, Sasuke leaned forward with an almost shy kiss. His dark eyes shone with the purity of his smile, the sincerity in his heart.
"I love you."
She kissed back.
She was Uzumaki Naruto and she never said what she never meant. And he was Uchiha Sasuke and he never said what he never meant to follow through to the end.
"And you'll scream, dobe."
It's fortunate, for the man choked up with emotions, that the most important things need the least number of words—they are the hardest thing to say and the fewer words are used, the more significant they are, because more words diminish their intimacy, the importance of the emotions and thoughts behind them.
Three words. It didn't matter if it was spoken while dreaming. They were three words and they were important and they were true to the one who spoke, and he was true while he dreamed as he was true while awake.
"I love you."
Two words. It didn't matter if it was spoken to a dreamer. They were two words and they were important and they were true to the one who spoke, and she was true while awake as she was true while she dreamed.
"Thank you."
And that one word wavering between dreaming and wakening, encompassing the most important thoughts and emotions that none could ever hope escape from. The shortest and most powerful word of all.
"Goodbye."
Fly on wings dusted in the silver of starlight and moonshine, carrying with you the promise of love in each wing. Every bit of love left behind piles up and grows, and someday soon they'll be wings and they'll fly back home. Until then, soar, fly and love some more.