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silentvoicescryingout · 5 months

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Steel - Chapter 2 (draft)

Previous chapter: 1

🔞🔞 Adult Content 🔞🔞

Made me, unmake me

Green eyes leveled at him, glinting like a freshly sharpened and polished blade. Pastel lashes lowered to shade jade eyes, casting a shadow that colored them darker, like rain soaked leaves after a summer storm.

“Brute strength might have made you,” he muttered, taking slow, lazy steps around the circumference of the invisible boundary of Sakura’s turf.

He came to a stop, five paces behind her left shoulder. Her right ankle twitched, the heel shifted back by a tenth of a tenth of an inch.

“If left unrestrained,” he continued, marking the ripple of tension that rolled from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, “I can unmake you with nothing of the sort.”

“Save your riddles, Kakashi-sensei,” she snapped. “You agreed to train me.”

“So I did,” he sighed. Her next breath whooshed out audibly from between her teeth. “What if I told you it was to humor you in your moment of elevated emotion?”

Using the right foot, she pivoted, appearing before him in the blink of an eye, her fist curled tight in the front of his shirt. The flexible fabric popped under the strain of her grip.

“I’d say that you owe me,” she murmured. Despite the cool quality to her tone, her fingers yet trembled, ever-so slightly. “For all the time wasted, and the days you ignored me before. It’s the least you can do.”

“I acknowledge my failures,” he replied. He swallowed thick, eyed the deepening furrow between his former student’s fair brows, the dancing of freckles along the wrinkled bridge of her nose.

“I’ve moved past wanting your acknowledgement.” Sakura released him with a shove that smarted, no doubt leaving a bruise. “I want you to create in me what you made of Naruto and Sasuke.”

He dodged her next blow, his blood pressure spiking in response to the reverberation of her fist smashing into the spot where his face could have been. The world whipped around in a whirlwind of color as she launched herself at him again and again, taking direct blows to her abdomen, her legs and face without as much as a flinch.

With a frustrated growl, Sakura heaved herself up from the ground, swaying into an offensive stance. He stood rooted in the spot he was in before, unruffled and unmarred save for the throbbing bruise at his sternum.

“If you have to break me apart to make me strong,” she panted, sweeping dirt from her cheek with the back of a torn glove. “So be it.”

“That’s not a healthy mentality,” he mumbled, scratching at his chest. He glanced down lazily at his feet, toeing a bit of rock with his sandal. “I suspect this is perhaps a twisted sort of coping mechanism, and I must say I do not recommend it.”

Kakashi attempted to keep his tone light, aiming for brevity and familiarity. Inside him something curled in his gut, sickening him with the image of a pale, youthful face splattered with strangers’ blood and tiny gobbets of flesh.

“You’re the last person to talk to me about coping mechanisms,” Sakura spit, commingled saliva and blood falling, splat, to the side. “You’ve killed or found dead most of your loved ones and spend your free time reading porn or talking to headstones. I couldn’t care less to know what you consider ‘healthy’.”

“Now, that isn’t very nice.” His jaw clenched before he inhaled deeply through his nose, becoming the picture of relaxation once again. “My sweet Sakura-chan would never have talked to sensei like that.”

She scoffed, rushing toward him with yet another full frontal assault. Even as he maintained his composure and twisted away and around her attacks, his muscles strained and heart raced with adrenaline.

Despite the assumed simplicity of her battle style, her technique was near-flawless. Sakura was fast, precise. Lethal. Each movement had a purpose and nothing was wasted from the flexing of her forearms to the touch of her toes to the ground. Kakashi knew that if she were to get her hands on him, he could very well be a dead man.

She fought with a ferocity born of trauma and marrow-deep determination. Her only failure was being fresh, lacking the experience that had festered inside of him for decades; her terrors had accumulated over only a handful of years.

His knowledge of her talent was now supplemented with the new awareness of her capacity for cruelty. It frightened him, even as the part of him buried deep inside who once sought out shinobi for qualities just like that was…intrigued.

Her voice tore from her throat, ripped through his musings and brought him back to the present just in time to duck below a kick that likely would have freed his head from his shoulders:

“You never had any qualms about ruining your students before. Why do I have to be different?”

Because you are different, he thought. He wanted to say, this isn’t you.

Kakashi had to stop completely in his tracks, locking his hands around her wrists in a hold that he knew she could break. He stared down, into her green eyes that were so bright they seemed to glow, at the thick locks of pink brushing past her shoulders.

He had seen that face so many times, watched it age and change slowly through the years. But everything, at this moment, looked so very unfamiliar. As if he hardly knew the girl–no, woman now– at all.

He wondered if he ever knew who Sakura was, if there was a Sakura to know— or if the young woman standing before him was an amalgamation of the people who had been there to form her. The compassion of her mother, wit of her master, quick temper from Naruto, hatred from Sasuke. That just barely cruel edge masked with pretty snark, everything Yamanaka Ino pruned her to be.

Kakashi wondered what, if anything, she might have inherited from him.

“If you want me to treat you like everyone else,” he said, shifting his feet ever-so-slightly, rolling his shoulders back, “so be it, then.”

Her next swipe of a chakra-laden hand cut through a billow of leaves. In the next moment, her legs were kicked out from under her, Kakshi’s knee pressed to her nape, a kunai glinting next to her cheek.

She growled in frustration, the tips of her ears stained red as she bucked and thrashed, dislodging him from his position on her back.

“There is no honor in the field,” he said, watching her face as her eye flitted between his feet and hands. “There are no standards of ethics, no codes of conduct.”

“I have been in the field before,” Sakura hissed, her limbs almost trembling with pent up energy. “I haven’t just been sitting around playing pretty nurse.”

“Assume what you know of shinobi to be a lie,” he continued, marking how she bristled at his lack of response to her quip. “We are not heroes. Not ninja like us. We don’t fight to protect the weak and the poor, nor do we fight enemies because it is the right thing to do.”

“Let Naruto and Sasuke be the heroes,” she spat. Mint-green chakra condensed around her fists, morphing into blade-like protrusions between her knuckles. “I just want to get the job done.”

“If I asked you to assassinate a man who is not even a shinobi,” he asked, lowering his voice so he knew she would have to strain to hear it, “would you do it?”

A beat passed, a minute shift in her features come and gone within the span of a blink.

“Yes.”

“Hesitation,” he sighed. “You don't have the heart for it, Sakura-chan.”

“You don’t know me,” she barked, her hand snatching him by the collar for one brief second before his form slipped away with a poof, leaving a log in its place.

“I do.”

“Everyone thinks they know who I am, what I’m capable of,” Sakura panted, swiping moisture from her brow and whirling to face him with a kunai glinting in her hand. “They make assumptions based on my background, on how I look, on who trained me–”

Their blades clanged, the force reverberating through the bones of his arm.

“–on who didn’t,” she whispered, baring her teeth and narrowing her eyes.

Kakashi allowed a tendril of electricity to zip between his fingers and crackle down the edge of his blade, watched as his former student flinched violently for a fraction of a second before she schooled her expression and steeled her grip.

“I don’t need to assume,” he said cooly, tightening his grip on his blade and his own emotions. He allowed his voice to deepen, his gaze to harden as he stared down into her pale, pinched face. “I know exactly who and what you are.”

“Yeah?” she grunted, bared her teeth. The tendons and his wrists began to ache, muscles bunching with strain as she slowly increased the force of her hand. “What am I, then?”

She had been angry since she arrived on the training grounds. But even as she cursed and spit nastiness at him, he knew that she was still restrained. By respect and her own inherent composure.

He also knew just how to strip that all away.

“Just a civilian girl,” Kakashi whispered, “playing shinobi games.”

When he had pushed Sasuke to his limits, the immediate response was pure, unadulterated rage. Anger that had festered into a pestilence, that carried with it the stench of rotting trees and old blood. He could see in his mind’s eye that way the young boy’s features had twisted like gnarled roots, how his eyes had bled the deepest red.

As always, Sakura was different. In the split second after his words filled the air around them, an agonized expression stole across her face, slackened her jaw and pulled her eyes wide until the green pupils seemed like pinpricks in the whites of them. Her breath stalled in her throat, lips trembling and jaw clenching tight.

Within the blink of his eyes he was slammed backward, pain radiating like a vibration to his spine as a crater formed to his shape around him. He twisted his fingers through hand signs furiously, throwing a barrage at ninjutsu in her direction. It bought him a few seconds, just barely long enough to pull himself to his feet unsteadily, lock his knees as she threw herself at him again in a flurry of feet and fists.

“Tsunade’s tricks, as usual,” he grunted, ducking low to avoid a blow he was sure was intended to actually free his head from his shoulders this time. “I suppose you’re a creature of habit.”

The sound that spilled from Sakura’s mouth could only be described as a garbled roar of fury. She kicked up a chunk of earth and launched it in his direction, following up with a veritable storm of kunai that it took more effort to avoid than he cared to admit.

Kakashi was equal parts proud and terrified at her performance.

“What about you,” Sakura shouted, her voice raw and broken. He fought to hear her still, over his thundering pulse.

“Me?” he questioned mildly. He sent a crackle of lightning toward her that ate away at the waist of her clothes, leaving bubbling, burned skin behind.

It was healed, fresh skin covering the area within moments.

She drew closer than anyone who truly knew him dared, and he managed to snag both of her wrists and lock her against him with a kunai pressed to her sternum.

“Friend-killer Kakashi,” she breathed, her breath hot on his face. Sweat tricked in rivulets from her temples, blood crusted at the corner of her mouth.

Deep inside of him, something ached. But he simply arched his brow, poising himself for the moment Sakura would break his hold, hoping he could avoid losing a limb or more when it happened.

Instead, she only stared. Until both of their breaths began to slow and silence settled like a weight on his back.

“You see her in me, don’t you?” Sakura asked, her voice quiet but piercing in the unnatural quiet around them.

“Are you ready to end our training session already?” he quipped. “I have quite a large pile of paperwork waiting on my desk.”

“The little civilian girl,” she continued, voice taking on that soft, child-like quality it had that blood soaked night that changed their lives. “One you could not save from a shinobi’s fate. I’m sure it keeps you awake at night.”

“Be careful, Sakura-chan,” he replied in a low voice. “Remember that you asked me for help.”

“Of course I did,” she grinned, and it looked sickly, false. There was no light to be found in her wide, wide eyes. “Because how could you deny me? Poor little Sakura-chan. So much like the friend you lost.”

“Training is over,” he stated. He loosened his grip on her wrists and inhaled deeply before stepping back. “Next time we work on your focus and control of your emotions.”

“Was Rin a deadweight, too?” Just as he turned his back and took the first step away, that name slipping past her lips made him falter.

“Sakura,” he whispered. “Enough.”

“I’ve thought about it many times,” she sighed, and he heard the shift of her feet over pebbles and upset soil. “Eventually I came to the conclusion that you neglected my development to somehow make up for the ways you failed to protect your teammate. If I never got into a fight, I couldn’t die in one, ne?”

Kakashi began taking tremulous steps forward, determined to leave the training grounds and this twisted turn of conversation behind. He would deal with his so-obviously cracking former student later. He had his own splintering glass to patch over, for now.

“I’m sure you thought you were protecting me,” Sakura raised her voice, her words falling upon his unwilling ears even as he sauntered away. “But did you ever think that instead of keeping me safe, you could have got me killed?”

Guilt burrowed so deep in his bones he struggled to breathe around it. He closed his eyes, unwilling to look into the memories and truth.

“You almost killed me, Kakashi-sensei,” she cried, something like mirth but far darker clouding her voice.

“I didn’t mean to,” he breathed.

“Kakashi,” a whisper, carried through the wind. His blood froze in his veins. “You killed me.”

Every single one of his muscles locked into place, his heart stalling for a long handful of seconds before resuming at a thunderous, violent pace. His hands shook, knees becoming weak as he toiled to pry his stiffened lips open–

“Kai.”

“You killed me, Kakashi,” the voice whispered again, tremulous. “Why?”

Kakashi’s body jerked, and he clenched his fists, allowing his blunt nails to bite sharply into his palm and uttered the phrase again.

Yet the air did not change, nor his visage of the ruined training ground. His breaths became shallow and a lump lodged in his throat as quiet, tiny footsteps sounded behind him, drawing closer.

“Why did you kill me, Kashi?” she asked. “Aren’t we friends?”

“Stop.”

He flared his chakra, snatched it inward. Fire danced over his knuckles, scalding him and yet–

Wake UP!

“Kashi,” she whispered, voice thick with pain and sadness. “How could you do this?”

As in all of his nightmares, he was helpless and unable to prevent his stiff neck from turning, to avoid the sight of a small girl soaked to the bone in blood, a gaping darkness where her chest should be.

“I’m sorry, Kashi,” Rin whispered. Black marks like diseased veins snaked from the edges of the maw of her wound, up her throat, webbing across her cheeks.

“No,” he rasped.

The scent of blood, pungence of burnt flesh filled his nose and mouth with every gasping breath. He stumbled backwards, clutching at the area above his own wildly beating heart.

The fabric of his shirt stuck to his fingers, and he snatched the hand away, staring blankly at the streaks of red spread thickly from fingertip to forearm, bits of sharded bone and fibrous clumps of flesh clinging to the fine hairs.

He gagged, nearly losing his footing again.

“Why would you do that, Kakashi-sensei?” The sound of Sakura’s voice caused his head to whip upward, but he was once again met with Rin’s small, ruined face.

“Stop this,” he begged.

“Kaka-sensei,” Sakura whispered.

Suddenly it was her, wide green eyes glossed with tears, pink hair stained with blood and small, pale hands prodding tenderly around the bleeding hole in her chest.

“Why, Kakashi?” she sniffled.

“Why?” Rin echoed, her face flickering over Sakura’s. “Why?”

“Why,” they both whispered, such different voices somehow entangling and becoming one, “did you kill me?”

Kakashi crumbled to his knees, clutching at his ears and shaking his head, unable to free himself from the lilting cacophony of the two voices, questioning and taunting him. They refused to be quieted or drowned out, even when he began to scream. It was as if they had multiplied into a chorus, hundreds of his failures joining to ask him why, why, why-

WHY?

“Kakashi-sensei.”

He came to awareness with a violent gasp, back arching upward and sending a bruising ache rattling down his spine.

Sakura gazed down at him, the sunlight forming a halo around her head, lightening her pink strands until her hair resembled more a rose-gold. Sharp rock pressed into the backs of his legs and neck, and an incessant pressure against his chest urged him to look downward.

“Get off,” he croaked.

She moved her foot away from his chest without a word, taking a step away from the crater within which his body was stuffed. He pulled himself up to stand on shaking legs and swallowed his panting breaths.

“A new trick,” she eventually murmured, after minutes of standing by as he struggled to grasp reality. “You told me once that I had an affinity for genjutsu. So.”

Kakashi barked a laugh that burned in his throat.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “That you do.”

Finally, he met her eyes. Her expression was blank, her eyes downcast. Not even a tell-tale twitch of her brow or crinkle of her nose cued him into what she could possibly be thinking.

“Well,” he exhaled, straightening and shoving a hand into the pocket of his pants. His fingers stroked against the edge of his kunai. “You’ve proven your point. See you tomorrow, same time. Have a good day, Sakura-chan.”

As he walked away, in the direction of the Hokage tower, he could feel her stare on his back. The feeling persisted for hours after.

Give up the ghosts

Sakura peered down at the sleeping Mitokado Homura, still and silent as the dead. It was easy to do so, considering she felt as if her own heartbeat was but a mere illusion. Her focus remained on the rise and fall of a frail chest, the webs of blue-green veins barely visible under paper-thin skin illuminated by moonlight.

A shinobi who had served under the second Hokage, one who had lived at least three shinobi lifetimes, laid so peacefully— face marred with wrinkles of age rather than the horrors of death and murder and generational strife. Sakura did not think it possible for any shinobi to indulge in such a peaceful slumber.

A pale hand, littered with tiny scars and roughened with callouses reached out, fingers fluttering over the pulse thrumming gently in his neck. To his credit, his cloudy eyes snapped open immediately upon the faint contact, but it was already too late.

Fingers crushed around his windpipe, effectively bludgeoning his vocal chords and choking off the exclamation she knew would fall from his lips.

“Shhh, Mitokado-san,” she whispered, hands glowing faintly as she smoothed over the damage she had done to his trachea and esophagus.

A terrible, wheezing croak slipped from his lips as Sakura moved her hand back, leaving behind a dark, gritty stain.

Then a kunai swung toward her face, but—the poor wretch—it was far too slow. She snapped the wrist holding the blade like a rice cracker and went about hauling the man from his bed and tossing him none-too-gently into the plush armchair at the center of his room.

Planting her hands on thin thighs, she knelt in front of him, fingers dipping deep into the muscles, the tips of them coating with warm, sticky blood.

Homura’s breaths were coming out in frantic pants, his eyes shooting around the room as he squealed and whined helplessly, words shaping intelligibly on his thin, wrinkled lips. For a long moment, Sakura only stared, feeling oddly light and ungrounded as she watched the practically ancient man struggle desperately, numb to the weak blows rained upon her shoulders and head.

“You don’t look like a man who could eliminate an entire community of people,” she whispered eventually. The man froze at the sound of her voice, gaze widening in horror as she withdrew her nails from the flesh of his legs and reached for his face with blood-caked hands.

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to your friend, Utatane-san,” Sakura continued, smearing blood in lazy patterns over his quivering face. “I made it quick, too quick for her. Because I was mad. Shishou would be ashamed that I let my anger control my actions that way.”

“Y-you,” the murderer rasped, voice sounding ripped and warbling. He began choking, unable to say more as red bubbled from his lips.

“I want to talk to you,” Sakura nodded slowly, voice soft. “I want to talk about why you soaked your hands in the blood of innocents, why you ruined Sasuke-kun’s life.”

“Uchiha...not...innocent,” he wheezed and Sakura tilted her head.

“Are you? Innocent?” she inquired. There was no answer as the pressure of her hands increased and with a sickening crack, Mitokado Homura’s jaw crumbled against her palms.

The sound of his attempted cry of pain was barely audible above the roaring in her ears. One hand fell from his face and the familiar glow of her chakra illuminated his slackened, terrified face for a moment before it condensed into a scalpel that she cut into his side.

“I did this before,” she murmured, pushing her hand into the neat incision, reaching between ribs to wrap her fingers gently around the hot, pulsing organ in his chest, “in the war, to save Naruto’s life. I’m sure you hate the fact that I did that. Like how you hate that we brought Sasuke back, that you weren’t able to execute him. Pity.”

Her grip tightened around the frantically thumping heart in her hand; instead of steady compressions to a still, quiet organ, she mapped the arteries and cavities with her fingers and chakra and after a breath sent a thrum into a particular spot. The chunk of flesh in her grip seized, hardening, misshaping itself before twitching erratically. As the organ struggled to find its rhythm, Sakura noted the convulsing of its cage, glancing up to see the way the old man’s eyes rolled white into the back of his head.

She withdrew her chakra for a split second before it flowed out again from her fingertips, gently guiding the flow of blood to the lungs and brain, calming the erratic twitching of the fickle organ once more.

“Sasuke-kun told me he’s haunted by the ghosts,” she informed, watching as tears flowed thick down her enemy’s face, pooling in the divots and valleys of his worn flesh. “Are you? Do they visit you in your dreams, too?”

She disturbed the flow of her chakra again, clutching the malfunctioning organ as Homura once again thrashed, legs kicking uselessly at her belly, spittle foaming white at the corners of his mouth.

“Do you want to see them, Homura?” Sakura pushed her face close to his as she once again stabilized his heart. “Don’t you want to talk to them about your innocence?”

An otherworldly feeling rose up like a wave in her chest as the frantic, glazed eyes above her suddenly sharpened and began darting about the darkened corners of the room. Faces that were mostly unfamiliar to her, but so very recognizable to him bled out from the shadows, drawing closer, closer still.

The furnishings of the lavish room fell away, filled to the brim with pale faces framed with pitch-dark hair, glinting crimson eyes floating toward them.

“P-plea-,” Homura choked, a weak hand rising to clutch at his face, bony finger tips catching in the fragile lids framing his wide eyes. “St-st…”

His gaze grew more horrified by the moment as the room filled with the faces of young men, old women, small children, infants cradled in the arms of black-haired ladies with bleeding irises.

“Look at them,” she breathed, fingers undulating about the slick surface of the heart thundering in her grasp. “Look.”

What would have been a high pitched scream ripped from his throat in the form of a wheezing squeak as the blood-red eyes of his demons fell from their heads, leaving behind gaping darkness in their skulls as they continued to move forward, ever advancing.

“Shh, Homura,” Sakura cooed, reaching up to force his gaze back down to hers. “They can’t hurt you. They’re just ghosts. I am your reckoning.”

Cracked lips gaped in a silent shriek as her once green irises bled red.

“M-m-monster,” he gurgled.

“I know you are,” Sakura replied, sinking back onto the heels of her feet and holding his gaze, “but what am I?”

Then she was ripping her hand from the cavity of his chest, blood, bone shard and viscera splashing hot over her cheeks as cloudy brown eyes widened before the light in them faded and his entire body went slack, sinking lifeless into the back of the armchair.

The taste of iron bit at the tip of her tongue as her lips spread into a crooked smile.

Forgive me not

Sasuke pretended that his gaze was focused on the tepid cup of tea cradled in his palm when the door creaked open and closed. As if moments before he had not been watching, waiting for it to swing open, for the sound of shuffling footsteps and rustling fabric to reach his ears in the ambience of the night-time hours.

“Okaeri,” he greeted quietly, voice raspier still than he would have liked. More internal wounds to heal from, he supposed.

“Tadaima.”

It was more of a sigh than a response. And so he allowed himself to look toward the doorway, to watch as Sakura trudged further into her tiny living room. She flicked on a lamp, casting the space in a weak, yellow glow.

“We don’t all have night vision like a cat, Sasuke-kun,” she muttered. Nearly each word was chased by an exhalation, a release of breath that made him wonder if words weighed like burdens on her tongue, too.

“You look tired,” he stated. His eyes tingled and the room became clearer, if less colorful as he engaged his dojutsu. “Chakra reserves are low.”

“Yeah, well,” she replied stiffly, footsteps pausing for a beat before she shuffled forward slowly. “I have a job. No special house-arrest vacation for me.”

“Hn.”

Sasuke let the snide comment wash over him, inhaling deeply through his nose and out of his mouth. Had Naruto said it, they might have come to blows. But this was Sakura–she had more than earned the right to tug on his nerves now and again.

“There’s dinner in the refrigerator,” he said softly as she finally swept past him, the scent of antiseptic thick, hints of jasmine seeping through.

“I’m not hungry,” she replied without turning.

“You must be.”

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug and she did not respond, swaying her way around various obstacles on the path to her bedroom. A low table, a small stack of heavy tomes. The tall, flowering plant that Sasuke watered and clipped every other day to give himself something to do other than sitting and stewing in his own thoughts. It had a strong fragrance, almost cloying, and it made his nose burn and head ache if he spent too much time in proximity to it. But Sakura would smile a little when the flowers looked vibrant.

When he stepped behind her, she froze, formerly slumped posture overcorrecting as her spine became rigid and her neck stiff.

“I’m not hungry,” she sighed. Sasuke only stared as she rotated slowly, bracing one of her hands on the doorframe leading into her room.

“You’ll sleep better on a full stomach,” he stated.

“I’m too tired to eat,” she countered. Indeed, her lips parted and jaw elongated on a wide yawn.

“It’s not poisoned.”

Sakura rolled her bloodshot eyes, “I know you wouldn’t poison me, Sasuke-kun.”

“I waited to eat with you.”

When her eyes finally met his head on, he knew he had won.

“Come on,” she grumbled.

Her shoulder brushed his chest, just barely, as she stepped around him. Sasuke traced the slope of her shoulders with his gaze, tracking the rhythm of her slow gait as she shuffled to the kitchen.

Sakura wrenched the fridge open and collected the collection of tupperware, scraping their contents into plates and bowls and shoving them into the microwave in silence. Sasuke stood quietly on the other side of the counter and watched.

“Are you,” she bit her lip, sliding his food toward him, “waiting for me to attack you, or something?”

“What?” he blinked, absently reaching for the chopsticks she had slid across the counter as well.

“You’ve been staring at me with the sharingan since I walked in,” she waved one hand in his general direction. Her chin stayed low, eyes fixed on the food in front of her.

“It scares you?” he asked, blinking again and letting his dojutsu disengage. “Sorry.”

“That’s not what I said,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food, chewing somewhat aggressively. “Just…I don’t understand why you’d use it when you’re at– here, with me.”

Sasuke took his own bite, studying her face as he considered.

“Sometimes I want to see more than I can with regular eyes,” he finally said.

“Hm. Okay,” she muttered. She continued to shovel food into her mouth.

“Are you sure it doesn’t scare you?” Sasuke asked, suddenly unable to take another bite. He set his chopsticks down and opted to swirl his spoon around the steaming bowl to his right.

“Should it?” she asked quietly. Her eyes flitted up to his briefly before focusing lower, perhaps on his chin.

“No.”

She stared downward, motionless. His fingers tightened around the spoon.

“Then, no. It doesn’t.”

Sasuke stirred his broth some more. Sakura resumed eating and silence blanketed the kitchen again.

“You don’t look me in the eyes when it’s engaged.”

“That’s shinobi 101,” she said briskly, sipping a spoonful of her own broth. “Never look directly in the eyes of someone who has the sharingan. I would do the same with anyone.”

“I’m the only one left,” he whispered.

She stilled, before lowering her spoon with a quiet clack to the counter. Her mouth opened as if she were going to speak, then closed again.

“You never looked away from it before,” he stated. His fingers tightened around the spoon once more, the metal warming in his grip.

Sakura glanced up to his eyes again, her full lips turning down a fraction. Then she shook her head, and let loose a quiet laugh.

“The last time I looked into your sharingan,” she said, lips twisted in a rueful smile, “you wrapped me up in a pretty nasty genjutsu, Sasuke-kun.”

An ache settled in his chest and shame washed over his head like an angry tide. He dropped the spoon and dropped her gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I forgave you long ago, Sasuke-kun.”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “But your instinct tells you that I’m a threat. I have made you uncomfortable in your own home.”

“Sasuke-kun. That’s not true.”

“You hardly eat,” he replied, voice low. “I hear you awake in your room at night. You spend more hours at the hospital than you are scheduled for to stay away as long as possible.”

“Sasuke-kun…”

He lifted his head, watched as she flinched at the sight of his red iris. A sick feeling swirled in his gut as he let the crimson bleed away.

“It was better for you when I was tied up and blindfolded in the prison. You probably felt safer.”

“Sasuke-kun, please,” she choked. Her palm smacked into the surface of the counter. “Don’t say things like that. Don’t be cruel.”

“I mean it,” he said quietly. “It makes sense that things would be easier when you actually felt safe with me.”

“I’m going to bed,” she said thickly, whirling away from the counter and taking heavy steps toward the exit of the kitchen.

“You never ran from me before, either,” he murmured. Sakura froze midstep.

“I can’t do this tonight, Sasuke-kun,” she breathed, voice barely audible with how she faced away from him. The desperation rang clear yet.

“I won’t stay here if you’re afraid of me,” Sasuke replied tightly. “I want you to feel safe.”

Sakura remained silent. He stood, the sound of his chair scraping the ground causing her to flinch.

He decided against approaching.

“Sakura,” he whispered.

“I can forgive you for anything, Sasuke-kun,” she said quietly, her voice tremulous and so very tired. “Anything. But I can’t forget so easily. I can’t help that my mind clings to certain images and that my body reacts. Call it fear if you want.”

Her head turned slightly, pink tresses shielding the majority of her face.

“Maybe it scares me to sleep under the same roof as the boy who put his hand through my chest in a dream,” she rasped. “But it scares me more to sleep under this roof alone, without knowing you’re somewhere close by. So let me have my fear–let me have you in the only way I can, until I get over one or the other.”

Shame, his oldest friend, clung heavy on his shoulders. It pressed upon his back and caused an ache in his chest, dragging especially on his left-hand side.

“If there was something I could do to take it back,” he rasped, “I would. Doing that to you is the worst crime I have committed.”

“Maybe not the worst,” she muttered. A heavy sigh brought her shoulders up, then down into a slump. “What’s happened, happened. I forgive you, Sasuke. You have to let it go as much as I do.”

Sasuke took a step forward despite himself, despite the way she stiffened.

“Sakura,” he whispered, drawing closer and daring to touch her arm with the tips of his fingers.

“Sasuke-kun, you can’t take it back,” she whirled and looked at him, chin tilted to stare straight into his eyes. “We both have to live with it. We can't unsee it or undo it; we just have to live with it.”

His lips turned down into a frown, an ache settling between his ribs.

“I’ll stay with Naruto,” he murmured. “I will leave– tonight.”

Yet his feet remained rooted to the spot, his body looming mere inches from hers. Staring, breathing.

“You won’t,” she whispered. “Not unless I tell you to go.”

“Tell me then,” he replied thickly. “Tell me to go.”

“No,” she breathed. She began shaking her head slowly, blinking as if meeting his eyes was the same as staring straight into the midday sun.

“Don’t let me hurt you more than I already have,” he begged. His hand lifted, drew close, cupped her face just as it turned away.

She slipped free from his gaze and grasp.

“Good night, Sasuke-kun.”

#steel #sasusakufanfiction #sasusaku #sasusakuangst #morally grey sakura #anbu sakura #alternate universe #silentfics #dark content #silent writes #canon divergence #silentvoicescryingout #this shit is gonna be intense #expirimental writing #slow updates #draft #steel chapter 2

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storywriter12 · 5 months

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Hay guys my 5th chapter of the crazy tinder guy is up on wattpad sorry for the slow updates I've been getting my Christmas books done! Well trying to before December 😊❤️

#fanfic #wattpad #the walking dead #negan smith #rick grimes #daryl dixon #carol petelier #sneaking around #gay kiss #cute couple #gay fanfiction #regan #slow updates #sorry 😬#christmas books #house x wilson #die hard #hans gruber

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sofiiel · 6 months

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Return of the Mack| 01

Warnings: mentions of drug use. | Table of Contents - Next

“You know after all these years they finally pronounced that Munson guy as innocent.” your cousin Marsha smacked over the phone.

She’d been going on for two hours while watching the local news, chomping on that stale piece of week-old gum. But even the smacking a popping of inhumanly hard, tasteless candy was better than suffering the night shift alone.

Shoving a yawn back down your throat, you sighed. “Seriously, Marshie? You’re still following that old story?” You ask her.

The clouds thundered like an angry drummer, and the wind whistled with the sharpness of a referee. Your eyes struggled to stay open, lulled by the hypnotic rhythm of the rain beating against the ceiling.

“Of course! That was back in our hay-day ____!” Marsha cheered.

Her grin could be felt through the phone.

“Your hay-day, Marshie. Not mine. ‘86 was the worst year of my goddamn life.” you murmur.

Marsha gave a jittered titter, “Oh you’re so modest, and a drama queen. So what, it was the year you got cold feet and ran out of the wedding and-”

You tapped your black boots against the worn brown carpet.

“That wedding was bullshit, but that’s not why it was the worst year of my life.” Your words don’t reach Marsha’s ears, she’s gone in her recounting of the event.

While you loved your cousin dearly, her jittered laughter was now picking at your nerves.

“skussssssh! Oh-oh no….mar-……marshie?” you stammered, recreating the sound of static with your vocal cords.

“I….skushhhh! I think the singal is - oh you piece of - skuuuussssh! sorry, Mars- I better call back - skuushhh-t-t-bzt-t - in the morning!”

Hanging up the phone, you slumped into the chair and covered your face with your hands.

In your grand act, you did not notice the shadow darting across the parking lot. Sopping wet with a drooping playboy mag for an umbrella.

You had not heard the door chime between the desperate hisses, and now you were blind to the wet rat of the man lingering before the front desk.

He watched you for a moment, his heart out thundering the storm. Caught in that agonizing moment which for each of you, though for many different reasons, felt like an hour.

When his hand reached out for the golden bell next to the brochures, a bright 'ding’ echoed past the whistling wind.

You hesitantly slipped your hands away from your face, your dry expression swiftly switching to a stunned gawk.

“Um… I saw that vacancy sign a mile down the road.” said your guest.

A smile inched across his lips, “Boots!” he gasped after a good hard look at your face.

The force of the scowl, that contracted your brows, was received like a punch. Your guest quickly threw his hands into the air.

“Nobody calls me that and walks away without a mauling.” you warned.

He laughed in a warm hum, “I remember well.”

“That was an awful fake-out, by the way. You sounded like a dying robot from an early 1960s horror film.” he added.

Your eyes thinned into a glare but fixed on his smile. It was the eve of the anniversary of the worst day of your life, and it flashed at you like a taunt.

“Says the Freak of Hawkins High and the only student in Hawkins history to fail Drama class. Twice.”

Your words were sharp, but still he smiled, and for an awful minute your chest ached at the brightness of it.

“Eddie fuckin’ Munson….of all people…” you sighed.

"So, can I get a room or..." Eddie lulled leaning against the counter.

"We're fresh out of rooms," You answered quickly.

His brows lifted higher and that smile turned into a closed smirk. "Was that a lie? And to my face?" the low gasp was filled with amusement. "Well, don't I feel special." he hummed, deepening his groggy voice as his head tilted slightly.

You watch droplets of water fall from the ends of his curled hair to the wood of the counter.

Eddie's hand slipped into his back pocket, pulling free a black leather wallet. "Look, what's it going to take, I'll pay extra. Weather's bad, roads are fucked." he murmured, digging between the wallet's fold to riffle through a stack of bills.

Your frown hung further down your face. He wasn't wrong it was raining the devil and pitchforks outside. Plus, you could hear the exhaustion in his tone.

"How long have you been on the road?" You asked, speaking over the storm.

Eddie rested his hand in his palm in thought, calculating his hours in his head. "About forty-nine hours and like sixteen minutes now." He said, "And that's after three hours sleep beforehand."

You chew the inside of your lip before sighing in defeat. Reaching under the desk, you pull out the key to one of your seven vacant rooms.

One hand slid the key to Eddie while the other took the money from him as he laid it on the counter.

"Your room 86," you said quickly, and Eddie whistled.

"You've got 86 rooms here?" he asked.

"Three hundred rooms, actually, three hundred and one if you count the room that doesn't exist." you murmured, counting out his cash and sliding the extra he'd included back to him.

Eddie pocketed it and gave a nervous smile. "Doesn't exist?" he asked.

"Mhm, room 301, it's on all the blueprints, we've got a key to it, but it's not where everyone says it should be." You explain dryly.

Eddie's eyes are as large as saucers, "builder's mistake?" he reasoned.

"Nope, for two generations we've received calls from room 301. My old man had a man come and check out of the room one morning, a man he never saw check-in or had on the books."

As you told Eddie the stories of the room, it was hard to withhold a smile. His eyes kept getting larger and he bit his lip.

Silence lingers as sounds of the storm echo and the radio buzzed softly behind you.

Eventually, you cave and give way to your laughter through a light chuckle. "I'm pulling your leg Munson." you confessed nodding towards the door, "Go on to your room and get some rest."

"Sooo," He lulled, "there's no room 301?"

"Oh no, there's a room 301." you shrug.

Eddie's eyes are screaming, but he gives his head a small shake and clears his throat. "Ok, that's not going to bother me at all." he murmured.

"Look, not to complain, and I'm probably pushing it, but...does it have to be room 86?" He asks.

You lift your brows high and lean back in your chair, "It'll get you to leave faster, won't it? Besides, the other six are flooded right now, well, except one that the last tenant trashed to high heaven. I need to do cleanup. For now 86 is the best i can do."

Eddie sighed, "Beggars, choosers that whole thing, right? Thanks, Boots."

"I said nobody calls me Boots!" you barked after him as he popped his soggy magazine back over his head and with the room key in tow made a dash out the door and to his room.

Watching him vanish, and eying the white truck resting far off from the other three, you groan. Covering your face as you slide down into your chair.

"shit," you whispered. "This timing."

"Out of all the motels in all the world, mine? Seriously?"

The following morning, loud music blared out of the room of your newest tenant. Two people had already complained about the noise, and the back was you could hear it the moment you stepped outside.

With your hand balled into a fist, you pounded on the door.

"Munson! Munson you turn it down or I swear to god I'm kicking you out with no refund, Freak!" you shouted at the top of your lungs, Bat tucked under your arm and free hand desperately holding your linty robe shut.

The door opened slightly, tethered by a chain lock.

Eddie's red eyes looked you up and down past heavy lids. "Was that last part necessary, Boots?" He asked through a gravelly voice.

"Yes." you spit pointedly.

"Fair enough, but the bat?" he said.

"Doubly so. Are you-" you squinted at his face, "you're high!" you gasped.

"It's just weed, Mom, I swear." Eddie chuckled.

"Bullshit, I can smell that a mile away."

Eddie grinned and tilted his head, "You were my best competitor," he sang.

"Get rid of it. Turn the tunes down. Or I'm kicking you out." You wanted, turning on your heel to walk away.

"Like a fuzzy pink robe, the bunny slippers are a nice touch, by the way!" Eddie called after you, snickering.

"Grow up, freak!"

"Saying princess bunny slippers! Good morning to you too Cinderella!" He called back.

You gave a hard roll of your eyes, though the corner of your mouth twitched, fighting hard to refuse a smile.

"I'm telling you, Marshie, I'm cursed." You said, phone tucked between your ear and shoulder.

You tried to slip your sweater on while digging in the drawer for your wallet.

"Wooooow, that's scary on the night before too. Did you call Butch? He'd come down and play guard. How long is he staying?" Marsha asked.

You paused in fixing your sweater, "I....didn't ask." You lulled.

"Probably just the night, he'll probably check out in the afternoon or...whenever," you replied.

"You should still call Butch," said Marsha.

"Butch works down at the hunting lodge during the day and the season is open. He's busy. Munson's harmless." You reasoned.

"They think he's harmless." Marsha's correction.

You fell quiet, spotting Eddie outside your office, walking with a small pep in his step as he fixed the cuffs of his dark flannel shirt.

"He's an idiot Marshie, not a killer. Look, I gotta go." You said quickly.

Eddie's eyes moved from the phone to your face, for a moment the smile he carried vanished.

"Did he hear that? Mom always did say you talked loud on the phone." you thought.

But the smile returned just as fast as it left.

Eddie pointed over his shoulder. "There was nothing on the way up here for miles and believe it or not I've never traveled through here." He started.

"what do you need?" you cut in.

"Where can I get some grindage?"

"The strip club is a town over and they're not pretty," you said flatly.

"No doofus, I mean food." He said. "wasn't that harsh though? I'm sure they're pretty enough."

You groaned and threw a silent tantrum via shuffling your feet in place. Eddie snickered.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Closest place is the lodge tavern. I was just headed there so-"

"Sweet, I'll join you." Eddie chimed.

"No. No, no, I am showing you. You're going to sit by yourself at your own table." You corrected.

Eddie hardly seemed phased, in fact, you could have sworn he was enjoying himself.

"Yes, ma'am, Bootsy." He hummed.

"I'm gonna cut you, I swear..." you whispered.

"But it's not Boots." he corrected, holding the door open as you lead the way.

A/n: chapters will likely be short ~ around this length as the norm.

Table of Contents - Next

#RotM Masterlist #eddie munson x fem!reader #trucker!eddie x fem!reader #season 4 semi cannon #slow updates

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ryehoneyinkstains · 1 year

Text

Lovers in a Lie 3/?

Fred Weasley X Reader

18+ MDNI (Mentions of sex in future chapters)

Fred Weasley didn't think he would fall for you when he asked you to be his fake girlfriend, now he has to deal with the repercussions.

Fred was waiting for you by the entrance of your common room. This was it, today he would set his plan into motion. By the end of the week, he'd be victorious. When he spotted you, he waved. He had been a little worried about how you might react, but was surprised when you smiled at him.

"How are you feeling?" you asked him. " Ready?"

He nodded and held his hand out for you "Ready." You took it, interweaving your fingers through his.

As you and Fred walked towards the Great Hall, you could feel people staring at you both. It was a strange feeling, being in the center of attention like this. Fred seemed to notice and squeezed your hand, wanting to distract you from getting into your head.

"So, why do you want to learn Quidditch?"

It seemed to work, as you turned to face him with a frown that melted away while you answered. "I think I want to try out for the team. It seems like fun. Plus..." you stopped; a bit embarrassed about admitting such a thing. " I want to make friends… the players always seem so close and I want to be a part of it."

He thought it was cute, wouldn't actually say so out loud. You'd probably hex him, but he never thought you would be the type to be so sentimental. That you'd want to be a part of a group. You were always alone, always buried in your books and your work. Even though you had friends, he realized he almost never saw you around them.

Odd, how he was now realizing such a thing. Were you lonely? He squeezed your hand once more " We've got practice today; I want you to swing by for your first lesson."

"With the team?" there was panic in your voice.

He laughed, " Of course not. You and I will practice afterwards, alone. I just want you to come watch first, get a little taste of what's to come." You simply nodded, worrying at your lower lip as you thought.

Then, for the hell of it he added" You know, you seem like the type to join the Dueling club more than anything. You're so good at hexes and that sort of stuff."

You snorted, and the sound made him smile. "Fred if anyone should be joining such a club, it should be you. You've literally invented hexes. Some of the students think of you as a legend, A god perhaps." You were reaching the Great Hall, the smell of breakfast making your mouth water.

"You're lying!" Fred had a grin on his face, smug bastard.

"You want your ego stroked."

"Can you blame a Wizard? Doesn't every guy want a pretty girl to call him a God?"

You rolled your eyes, but Fred could see the hint of a smile on your lips. "You think I'm pretty?" you asked, a hint of surprise in your voice.

Fred's grin grew even wider. "Of course, I think you're pretty," he said, his voice low and teasing. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever met." His brain froze after saying that. It sounded like he was flirting, and he wasn't. He wasn’t trying to at least. He didn't know why he had said that. If he tried to take it back, not that he wanted to, it would make him seem like an asshole.

"So, are we going to sit together?" you changed the conversation, steered it in the right direction. Pushed the odd warm feeling his words gave you somewhere in the back of your head. He looked grateful for it, reminding himself to maybe not say stuff like that next time.

"It'd be weird not to, come." he let go of your hand, walking over to the Gryffindor table. You followed him, watched as he pushed his brother Ron aside and sat down.

"Move, my girlfriend is joining us."

He was too loud, people turned to look at him. People like Angelina, who sat a few third years away, on the opposite side of him. He fought the urge to look at her, took your hand instead and helped you sit next to him.

Breakfast went a whole lot better than you thought, hanging out with the twins and their friends was always exciting, if not a little draining at times. There was no pressure to prove that Fred and you were together, people seemed to believe it. One Gryffindor, a girl on the Quidditch team told you that you guys made a cute couple. You weren't sure if she was being sincere, seeing as she soon sat down next to Angelina and her friends.

You had tried not to look her way at first, but then you had felt her staring. When you peeked, you weren't expecting her to be full on glaring daggers at you. You didn't look again after that.

You ate a bit, scooped some hot cereal into a bowl and sweetened it up, but your appetite was gone after a few bites. If you were feeling uncomfortable, you wondered how Fred was doing. Surely, he must have noticed. While you were struggling to hide your emotions, Fred was a master at the art. He laughed, tossed food, looked like he was having the time of his life. It was only when the booming bell sounded and students began to leave for their classes did he wrap an arm around your shoulder. It happened so naturally that outside the people who knew what was going on, no one could connect that he had done it to bring Angelina's attention back on them. And he knew they had it. Knew her well enough that he didn't have to check.

Then he leaned on you, kissed the top of your forehead when you turned towards him. It was intimate, something he used to do with her. It kind of felt wrong, using you like that but out of his peripheral he saw her fuming and new that his plan was working.

"See you at practice babe?" again he was loud, standing up before you. You sat there, unable to hide the small blush that warmed your skin at the sudden display of affection. Again, that small warm feeling was spreading through you and again you pushed it into the back of your mind. For someone not wanting pet names, he sure dropped one pretty fast. He didn't give you a chance to respond, already heading out of the hall, arm tossed around George.

You wanted to melt into the table and disappear. Instead, you stood, you had a Herbology class you couldn't miss.

The day was dragging. Too many people had come up to you to ask if it was true, were you really dating Fred Weasley? Too many times you had to respond that yes, you were. You knew the twins were popular, but to this extent? It was draining, mentally and physically. After your third class you settled for shooting daggers at people, hoping they stayed away. You skipped lunch, not really up to go through another breakfast situation. Found peace in the library until Fred showed up. It was almost like he knew exactly where you were, down to the precise section.

"Hiding?" he took the seat in front of you.

You weren't reading, couldn't even force yourself to. Just sat there, looking through the pictures. "Sorry." was all you managed to say.

He shrugged, leaned into the table to look at what book you had, decided that anatomy was a little too gross for him and readjusted in his seat. "No, I'm sorry. I've been getting all types of people coming up to me today. I'm already sick of it. Can't even start to think how it must be for you."

"Horrible."

"Horrible!" he repeated amused, as if it was some sort of joke. "Are you still coming to practice?"

You closed the book, crossed your arms on top of it. " Angelina hates me. You might end up getting what you want in the end, but I think she scares me."

Again, Fred laughed like what you said was so absurd it was funny. " She scares you? What about her is so scary?"

You weren't sure how to explain it. Couldn't come up with the words to explain how that glare had shaken you to the core, so you just gave up, groaned and let your head drop on top of your arms.

"Have you tried talking to her?" you asked.

You weren't looking at him, didn't see him shake his head. "Not yet. It's too soon don't you think?"

"No."

He rolled his eyes. " I want her to come to me, she has to initiate things."

That was the dumbest thing you've heard all day, but you weren't about to be mean. "Is it a good idea for me to show up to practice? Wouldn't that be a little too much?"

"I think it's the perfect amount of much."

You peeked at him while he continued. " Its romantic you see, you showing up to my practice. It's going to throw her off."

You hummed in agreeance, trying to picture it. Somehow the thought worried you.

"Fine, guess I'll see you at practice."

The smile Fred gave you shouldn't have been so attractive.

#fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred and george weasley #fred weasley fic #weasley twin #crack fic #neurodivergent reader #slow updates #slow in general #fanfic #weasley drabble #fred weasley x you

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