A/N: CHRIST ON A BIKE AN UPDATE! WHAT?!
Yeah, so this is late as hell. Who would've thought a full time job would FULLY take up your TIME? I DIDN'T.
But alas, it seems to. Sorry. This has been in the works for-fucking-ever now, but it's finally at a place where I'm comfortable publishing it. Spent way too much time editing again - hopefully it was worth it.
Also, while I was busy NOT WRITING this story, I caught up on a decent amount of "Naruto." I guess this fic fits in right after Sasuke kills Itachi, before he decides Konoha can fuck itself (I'll deal with that later). So as of this story's setting, nothing cool like defeating Pein, Jiraiya dying, Naruto saving the village, etc. has happened. Unfortunately. But so it goes.
I obsessed over this chapter a little too much, so hopefully the next ones won't take nearly as long to put up. I'm busy as hell but I promise I still give a shit about this story. A chapter per week is not looking likely, but I'll do what I can. Gomen ne.
GANBARIMASU!
Morbid Original
"Sakura-chan….Is this really happening?"
The question rang over and over again, echoing off the walls of her otherwise empty mind. The timid inquiry of a perturbed boy emerging in a hesitant whisper lest, God forbid, it break whatever spell had seized them.
Did it really happen? she asked herself, staring at her stoic ceiling. Had she truly crossed that line? Had they ventured past the point of no return, forsaking their friendship forever in favor of some momentary impulse, some fleeting urge? She had no idea what had come over her in that instant, but something had changed. She never acted so impetuously, always stopped to measure pros and cons, the consequences of her actions. Why then had her common sense so entirely gone out the fucking window at such a crucial moment?
In apparent mockery of her helplessness, the ceiling offered no response.
"Shit," she mumbled aloud, the harsh word the first to leave her lips in hours.
She felt him gasp against her lips, freeze beneath her crushing contact as she pushed him to the wall. It had happened outside herself, that first collision; brutal, unskilled, yet somehow confident. She could feel his surprise in his unmoving mouth, his body stiff against hers. Somewhere beneath the haze she knew this hesitation to be the logical reaction. The fight or flight response: gauge the situation, register the dangers, then choose the path with the greatest chance of survival. The path that would hurt them the least.
But there was no such option. She had already kissed him – was still kissing him. If they stopped they would have to face what had transpired – what she had forced upon them in their already precarious dynamic. Scenarios of every conceivable consequence rushed through her skull, each more dire than the previous, packing more and more panic until they stopped – cut off by the distraction of uncertain hands coming to her hips.
It was as if her busy brain had severed from the rest of her nervous system. Her thoughts completely ceased, drowned out by the sudden well of excitement rising from the pit of her stomach, the hot flush that charged through her head to toe as he started to kiss back, slowly, unsurely. Then more insistently.
She felt him relax, his touch light but warm as it climbed the small of her back, her shoulder blades. His lips were dry but perfectly smooth, surprisingly soft. Their rhythms matched almost immediately, choreographing to each other's compulsions; keeping it delicate, unhurried. Until a graze of teeth against his lower lip beseeched his mouth to open, and tongues crept out to meet.
She stood on tiptoe now, stretching to gain access beyond the parted lips where she yearned to explore. Every languid caress of his tongue stoked a rising heat inside her, made her cheeks go hot. Fingers clutched at the well worn fabric of his T-shirt as his grip around her tightened, mounted to lace through her hair. With an accidental tug on the pink tresses came the sound, a tiny, startled moan from her swollen lips, and she opened her eyes.
She snapped to attention with a start, the meager, nostalgic noise in her throat shaking her from her reverie. Her room felt cold, inhospitable, bathed in the sterile blue of very early morning. She traced her fingers over tender lips, pressing lightly to gauge the extent of bruising. Eventually she would have to look in the mirror, face her reflection; confront herself about what she had done and try to manufacture some escape.
She had kissed him. She had kissed her best friend, her closest comrade. She had altered their bond forever, and there was no undoing it. It simply wasn't possible. The reality of this sank in as dawn's chill into her skin, its gravity anchoring her to the bed as her heart pulsed a now familiar dread through her veins.
A flash of panic surged through her as her eyes opened, tongue withdrew behind her teeth. She feared the sight of him – the sight of him seeing her – would shatter the hypnotic force that held them, that had encased their minds in fog and brought them to their current position despite their higher rationality. She wanted to pretend she hadn't opened them, to shut them tight as if straining to preserve a dream from which she'd awoken too soon. But it was no use. She'd broken the kiss. He'd seen her eyes flutter open, felt her go still. She'd already broken the spell.
His grasp loosened slightly; her heart capsized. But when she finally braved to meet his gaze she found it not at all accusatory, nor the least bit affronted. All that the bright blue bore was the haze, the hunger, the vaguest flicker of apprehension she knew must be reflected in her own misty orbs. The same rapid whispers of breath puffed from his reddened lips and hers; identical crimson adorned his whiskers and her porcelain skin. Their twin appearances spoke of one desire.
Reservations thrown to the wind, Sakura leaned back into him, reclaiming his mouth more aggressively than before. His grip on her hair, around her back, strengthened again, and as she writhed in his grasp she heard his breath go ragged, morphing at last into a near painful whine. He began to slow, relax away from her again, doubtlessly fearful of exposing a certain anatomical embarrassment; but she was far past the point of being offended. There was no turning back now. The only way to go was forward.
That much she knew, in the dark primal caverns of her unconscious mind, so when he slackened she pressed closer, hands wandering liberally over his form; weaving through wild hair; grazing taut flesh through the now damp T-shirt; coming to rest on the hem of his pants, fingers dipping eagerly inside to brush fiery skin.
He heaved slightly, depriving her of her grasp on his pants and forcing her back a step. For an instant she flooded once again with the fear of being stopped, of having to evaluate her actions or atone for them; but the time for logic had not yet come. With one hand still resting on her hip, the other dug round in his pocket, clumsily producing his key. He palmed it for a moment, considered it, then looked back at her. When all she did was blink he closed his fist around the key, releasing her only long enough to unlock the door and swing it open.
For all the manic thoughts bombarding her she could find among them no viable solution to her plight. Her vision came to focus once again on the ceiling, its ambivalent white a mockery of her; immaculate, untouched. She groaned, rolled onto her side only to groan again, louder, at the pain in her lower abdomen, her inner thighs.
She pressed her hand to her stomach, exhaling deeply to relieve some of the discomfort. It didn't hurt, exactly; but it felt sore, hollow. Her hand traveled lower, gliding over the pleated skirt she was still wearing from the previous night, clutching gingerly at its hem. The flannel contrasted pleasantly with the velvet skin of her thigh, the sleek arc of her quadriceps toward her hips, and in between them more clandestine territory. She ran a finger over the negligible cotton garment that shielded her womanhood (for she was meant to be a woman now, supposedly, as if she wasn't before), felt a subtle tingling in the sensitive tissue beneath.
She clamped her thighs shut over her roving hand, arresting it in a trap of glossy flesh. The abrupt movement sent a cramping tremor through her solar plexus, and she released another soothing breath, squeezing her eyes closed.
The door slammed shut with a clash of finality, making her start; but the minuscule gasp she released against his lips her partner received as just another moan, followed this cue to tighten his grip around her, press against her harder so that she was almost suspended between him and the entryway wall. There was something alarmingly decisive about the crash, the abrasive signal that they had entered his apartment, crossed into a sphere of privacy implicit of certain intentions; but any anxiety this realization caused capitulated under his touch, the caress of his callused hands, the every bout of his tongue. She felt her knees grow weak at the sensation of her tiniest movement against the thigh he pressed between her legs; clutched to him tighter, grabbing blindly until she found the hem of his shirt, yanking it up to reveal the warm flesh whose contact she so desired.
In her aggression she lost balance, sending them stumbling away from the wall as she worked his shirt over his head, reattaching herself to his smirking lips the second his face was free from the black fabric. As she once again grasped at the waist of his pants she realized they had come to a stop, their frenzied meandering blockaded by the bed.
At the sight of the modest furnishing, the tousled sheets and single pillow, her heart skipped a beat, but a mere glance at her partner's mirrored ambivalence spurred her forward. She pushed him back until he sat then climbed onto his lap, lulling his widened eyes closed with a luxurious sweep of her tongue against his. As his arms tightened around her once again she felt him shake, his muscles quiver as she hovered closer to the obtruding hardness just below her. A hiss escaped his mouth as she brushed against it, sending an electric wave up her back all the way to her head where he grasped feverishly at her hair.
He was near his limit, she knew; could tell from his ragged breath; the trembling hands that roamed over her cautiously, calculatedly, gliding over her shoulders and back with distinctive restraint. He didn't dare contest her boundaries (or his own limitations), but in the heat of his breath and the feel of his bare skin she felt she had none to be crossed. She undid her top, let it slide to the floor as a spark of wonder seared through his hazy stare. He froze beneath her as she reached for the clasp of her bra. In paralytic disbelief he beheld the sight before him, the black lace bolstering milk-white skin that nearly glowed in the moonlight. His gaze broke with a blink, wandered up to meet her own, and through the cloudy blue a question permeated though it could not reach his lips.
Her answer came with the muted snap of her bra coming undone. She cast it aside and crashed against him, a feline sigh escaping her throat at the collision of their naked skin. He lay back as she loomed over him, leaving his lips at last to trail her mouth down his neck, his collar bone. At the graze of wet lips on the nape of his neck she heard his breath hitch, smiled and sucked there as he tensed beneath her. Her nipples hardened as they brushed his heaving chest; a heat rippled from her groin as she rubbed against his erection, eliciting a final moan before he flipped her over, ready to take the reigns – or unable to resist.
He cupped her breast as he traced his tongue down her neck, pausing at the crook of her clavicle to suck lavishly, nibbling the tender skin as she squirmed. She hastily pawed at his pants but in her limited reach couldn't remove them, so she unbuttoned her skirt and tried to shimmy out of it. His hand slid down to cover hers, pulled the skirt off gingerly, leaned in to kiss her as he dragged his pants down.
She wriggled out of her underwear, once again with the help of his steadying hand, and dove her tongue deep into his mouth, clutching roughly at his hair, tugging him closer. She writhed under his gentle touch, his fastidious tenderness, gripped with a sudden urgency. Her heart thundered in her ears as she yanked at his boxers, desperate to remove the final article that opposed her hunger, her need.
But then she stopped. Froze. Quieted by a single utterance that quelled even the hammering of her heart.
He shushed her. She barely heard it, coupled with her heavy breath and the fraught whimpers that fled from her lips. But it was there, subtle as the still night air that flooded from the window; steady as the hand that cupped her face, the thumb that lightly stroked her cheek, traced across her lips. She looked up at him and the fog had diffused entirely from his gaze, replaced with a staggering clarity that shocked her silent, calmed her pulse, rid her body of its overwrought rigidity.
He leaned into her again, pressed to her lips a kiss so slow she thought she might melt. Her eyes fluttered closed as he ran his hand down her side, over the arc of her thigh to rest across her hip bone, wherefrom the thumb stretched out to stroke the tiny jewel between her legs. She gasped at the first electric graze of his touch, writhed as he returned his mouth to her neck, slipping a finger inside as his thumb still circled her clit, swirling around it until she bucked, breath reduced to a hungry pant. With a press of his lips to her throat he removed his boxers, closed the space between them so that every inch of bare skin touched, kissed her delicately. Then with a final prying stare of bright blue eyes she hugged him to her with a squeeze of her thighs, felt him brush against her as a sigh escaped his throat.
Again her eyes snapped open as her half-conscious dream broke, the recollective reverie disturbed by yet another growl from her lips. She shivered, suddenly susceptible to the cruel chill of morning air from the window, yet she found herself unwilling to turn down the covers and shelter herself in their warmth. Even under the duvet, freshly laid out for autumn's incremental approach, she would still shiver, she thought. She was cold at the core. Her heart was ice. Why else would she have let things go as they had, risking the friendship she valued most – that they needed most, now more than ever? How else could she justify taking advantage of the boy whose feelings, past or present, always bent him to her will?
That had to be the reason he let it happen, she thought. Whether he 'liked' her or not, he always acted out of consideration for her, her happiness. Why else would he have gone through with it if not to appease her fleeting, selfish desires?
Whether he liked her or not, he wouldn't have wanted it like that, she thought. Not with her. She released a great sigh, half expecting to see her breath cloud as another chill climbed her spine.
His breath on her ear distracted from the brief discomfort of his entrance, the painstakingly considerate execution of their physical union. When the initial difficulty had passed and she felt his hips brush the back of her thighs, she gave a silent signal – a squeeze of their laced fingers – to go on. His lips returned to hers with a new hunger, a slight smirk that widened as he moved into her again, gliding easily now against the smooth wet walls. A tension built where he rubbed against her, the sensation mounting through her body until her breath degraded to sharp gasps. Almost outside her control her grip around him tightened, nails dug deep into his skin.
He moved faster now, trembling with every collision of his hips against the backs of her thighs, breath unabashedly ragged against her lips. She couldn't breathe, head clouding with a building heat that made her squeeze her eyes shut, her throat close. His movement grew erratic, strained, as he pressed his face into her neck, a growl gathering in his throat that reverberated through his every motion. When she finally managed to draw a breath her chest hitched, back arched; the air fled from her lips in a startling cry she hadn't expected but couldn't suppress as white-hot waves shot through her, wracking her body as would an electric shock until with a groan her partner crumpled on top of her. The pervading light faded from her vision as she quieted, her breath and body stilled beneath him.
The first tentative rays of sunlight peered through the window, spilled across the floor and bed. At the caress of its fragile golden warmth on her face Sakura rolled away, shirking its comfort for the cold shadows where she belonged. She lowered unsteady legs to the chill wood floor and crossed to the mirror, bracing herself with a deep breath.
It fled from her in what was almost a gasp the second she came to face her reflection. She certainly looked like she'd done something idiotic. Her hair mussed, clothes disheveled, makeup smeared under her eyes. Her neck spattered with red and purple marks. Bruises tinted her lips and the backs of her thighs. She looked like she'd just escaped a hostage situation, not partied at a bar then stupidly fucked her friend.
Her friend. Jesus. If he even fit that description now, after what they'd done. After what she'd forced upon them. After what she'd said.
"Sakura-chan…"
They lay there for a moment gathering their breath, steadying their shaking limbs, staring up at the ceiling. It slowly came into focus as the fog cleared from her brain, satiated at last. Suddenly her heart began to race, pump panic through every inch of her as her rationale broke free of its bonds, shot from the dark recesses of her mind to scream at the forefront of her consciousness. She had fucked up. She'd let it go too far. She hadn't been thinking clearly and now there was no going back. She had ruined things forever. This wasn't supposed to happen.
She lay there stiff as a corpse, hoping he would fall asleep, but no sooner did she sit up than he said her name.
"Sakura-chan…Is this really happening?"
Too many responses flew through her brain from every breed of intent, none of them adequate to undo what had happened or even nullify its gravity. She began to dress to buy time, hoping the best answer would come to her, but the voices drowned each other out, morphed into a dizzying white noise to the metronome of her pounding heart. As she stood, without looking at him, she opened her mouth and let out the first thing her tongue could form.
"Well, it did."
"…Oh," was all he said, in a tone she couldn't decipher alongside the chaos in her head. Without so much as a backward glance, much less another word, she left.
His voice bounced around her skull until it physically ached. Memory of his touch lingered on every inch of her skin where more often than not it manifested in heinous blue-purple marks as proof of their transgression.
So this is what 'letting go' looks like, huh? she thought derisively as again she traced a finger along bruised lips, a smirk appearing despite herself as she recalled that first clumsy kiss, the feel of his hair and lips and skin…
She caught herself on the edge of another reverie and stepped back from the precipice.
"…Shit."