ONESHOT - SASUKARIN; MIDNIGHT TALK
Fellow SK shippers and I have been discussing how do we envision Sasuke and Karin as parents; and while I was thinking about that I was hit by a sudden mental picture. And so, this little drabble-turned-one-shot was born.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDyCPLPCEUo
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Title: midnight talk463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU2twoxIq3Z
By: Kanae (Goth-Punk88 @ ff.net)463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYL72IgMH6x
Rating: T463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMihuymi5o1
Word Count: 1.462463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfC04GG6qHR
Author's Notes: Takes place post-series.
midnight talk;
A spark of alert flashes through her consciousness, briskly pulling her back from slumber. For a moment, she is disoriented—but then she feels it. That ghost of a caress, his finger absentmindedly tracing that particular spot above her left breast. The spot that was buried underneath bite marks but that he somehow never failed to find.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS4CIqE4ds3
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“Sasuke…?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqYWanWYhfL
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He does not reply straight away; rather, his body speaks for him—the hold of the arm circling her waist strengthening, his fingertips pressing against the tender skin of her hip and his toes coming to rest against her ankle. But when his voice joins his body language, it is nothing more than a mere murmur.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPqnoPNvqEF
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“…What if I’m not a good father, Karin?” he inquires, his breath tickling her bare breast. “What if… they hate me?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS7ja3S6d1k
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His free hand travels from her collarbones to her swollen belly, and Karin has to resist the urge to swat it away out of annoyance at his insecurities. Letting such a thing get to him, this was so unlike him.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg3GmPTLMKD
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“Why would they hate you, Sasuke?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbMLaEOqtbo
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His fingers move up, up and come to lightly trace the tear-shaped scar that both of them knew only too well, and she feels it again, then—that fluctuation in his chakra. That drop of mud that had sent ripples to what used to be a peaceful current and that had pulled Karin back from her own rest.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Arhsl7JKy
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“… I almost killed their mother, didn’t I?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF6VsHV9MWt
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So this is what this was about, huh?463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLg7tLVfNt8
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Karin sighs, raising her hand and letting her fingers entwine with locks of Sasuke’s jet-black hair. “We’ve been over this before, Sasuke.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXQ4M7aVYBc
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“I know,” he acknowledges, but his chakra is still stirring and his voice is still a strained whisper. “I know, Karin. But…”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzscOCVZ0tZ
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“Sasuke—”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnq4Co1vyQr
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“—What I did was… still is unforgivable,” he says, his voice gaining strength in order to overpower her complaints. “What right do I have to be the father of your children, Karin?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4toxwECEG7
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Their eyes meet, then. Karin’s glasses lie discarded on the nightstand, but she does not need them—not when he was this close, with his head lying on the crook of her neck. Not even the darkness of the room could prevent Karin from reading the look in his eyes as clearly as she could read the turmoil swimming inside his chakra.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdNwqR8HsB3
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It makes her frown, her hand slipping down his hair and to his neck.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnQmOkDtXyV
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“Don’t be stupid, Sasuke. This isn’t about rights—you are the father of my children, whether you like it or not. It’s too late to turn back, now.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDtgRhir2yE
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I wouldn’t turn back even if I could, is what remains unsaid, but Karin hopes Sasuke will be able to pick it up from her gaze, from her touch. It is an undeniable truth that Sasuke should know well by now, and Karin is not going to indulge him by voicing it aloud.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVGGAfBs6Xk
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So focused is she on her thoughts that she misses his movements. When his warm fingers come to lay against her cheek, delicately, as if afraid that she would disappear with the lightest of touches, Karin finds her breath leaving her in the form of a stifled gasp.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFiTqNJYLQM
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“Why…?” he asks, his eyes boring into hers, and Karin finds her edges rounding and becoming cotton-soft under his touch and the urgency behind his gaze. “Why did you give me a second chance, Karin? Why… why do you allow me to stay by your side, despite everything I’ve done?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4rQ9LOv11
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“I’m… no saint myself, Sasuke,” Karin finds herself muttering, but anything she may have added slips through her mind and remains forgotten, as Sasuke pushes back the bangs from her forehead and begins to trace the contours of her face.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡje7AzB3GHO
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“No,” he agrees thoughtfully, voice soft. “You are not, Karin… But you are no devil, and I—”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNJEuMea10K
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“A man,” Karin cuts in, firmly, and Sasuke’s fingers halt their ministrations. “You are nothing but a man, Sasuke. And men make mistakes.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHpqB1ieNIZ
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“…Mistakes that could’ve cost your life, Karin,” Sasuke reminds her, his eyes narrowing. Karin’s mirror his look, faded annoyance beginning to come back to life yet again.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaIbPvfLgvK
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How many times would they have to go through this before Sasuke let it go? When would he learn that clinging onto the past never did any good? All his mistakes—all the pain he caused himself and those surrounding them steamed from that stubbornness of his, from that apparent incapability of living the present for what it was. And Karin—Karin refused to let him continue to chastise himself in her name’s sake.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyoPDsSPlpH
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Not when she had already forgiven him a long time ago.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVJYdp4w7iW
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She would not play his game.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxP91KuBJJj
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“If you feel that way, then why are you with me, Sasuke?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqwrcgLmWHf
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“… Because I’m selfish,” he replies after a breath, and his fingertips are tracing her lips, now, “I’ve always been selfish, Karin. You know that well.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEfZ15UYeN2
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A ghost of a smile curves the corner of Karin’s lips, but she forces herself to hide it before he could have the chance to notice it through his touch. It was no time to humor him; not yet, at least.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtWNiLKGbBi
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“Is that all this is to you, then? You not wanting anyone else to have me?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLoBE9MSDbw
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“No,” Sasuke states, and he is frowning, as if indignant by the suggestion alone. “You know that’s not how it is, Karin.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhwVQ04nCkk
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Oh, she knew. Of course, she knew, she would not be with him otherwise. But Sasuke needed to learn how to say it; because while she did not need to hear it, his children would.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4WDwIzc4V
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“Then let me hear it, Sasuke.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWSUoYuqAra
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There is hesitance showcased in his eyes and expressed through the way his fingertips linger, unmoving, ghosting over her cheeks; but Karin did not allow herself to feel like she was being unfair to him, asking him to say words that she had yet to say aloud herself. But the difference was that Karin knew how to do so; she had not forgotten.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8e2Eu3cwvD
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But Sasuke? Sasuke had. And Karin knew that was one of the thorns that kept jabbing at him whenever his eyes flickered across her swollen belly. A thorn embodied by the scar that remained as a memento right above her heart.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCsov90KDH8
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“Karin…”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpb4VvHhUFs
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And so, she does not back down.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf0lfDjQi35
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“Say it.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrqwkBncdlE
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Sasuke heaves in a sigh and closes his eyes for a long moment, defeated. Karin reaches out, then—reaches out and traces his face with the same adoration with which he had been tracing hers, using her warm touch as encouragement.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEyIrS1DEfF
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When his obsidian eyes open again, what she sees in them steals the breath right off her lungs.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUODJI35BUp
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“Karin, I…”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrRcqtcYHsu
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His voice fades into silence as the words stumble over each other inside his throat, inexperienced, alien to his lips but overpowering in their truth—and so Sasuke leans in and lets his lips speak wordlessly directly to Karin’s own, which answer their call with a hunger that would never cease to set his very veins aflame.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQxn8ij6TsB
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When they part, Karin’s arms, which were circling his neck, hold him in place; and so he lets his forehead lay against hers, his lips lightly brushing her own with every word he spoke.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWqTIjgXa88
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“I want you, Karin,” are the words he says aloud, but Karin hears beyond them and into the feelings he expressed through his kiss—through his gaze, through his touch. And it is to them that she replies:463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXZLKKmSLbm
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“It’s the same for me,” her voice an intimate whisper meant for him and him only. “Always.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7MZMWNOqC
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Her name leaves his lips in the form of a shaky breath, and Karin holds him close, gives him solace in the modest curve of her breasts. “They won’t hate you, Sasuke,”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9lYkON81Gu
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“… How can you know that?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFjpSD40sOw
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“Don’t you trust me?”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUcy9ltox2h
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Sasuke says nothing; he does not need to. Karin smiles. “Then trust me on this, Sasuke.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3K82h5XKPK
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There is no way they will hate you, is what Karin tells him without words as she plays with his hair. Not if you look at them the way you looked at me just now.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFgtrPFesaY
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“…Alright.”463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwG5IAiX3Js
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Karin’s gaze darts to his face, and she is pleased to see a peaceful expression taking over his features and reflecting on his chakra. The sight softens her smile, and she feels a surge of warmth expanding through her body as Sasuke unconsciously places his palm over her belly, the chakra of the two beings resting inside stirring to answer his call.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj64Jovoxdm
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You idiot, Karin thinks, fondly. They love you, already.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDuSBM18hmK
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As did she. And that was all she needed to know to quiet down her own fears; her own insecurities.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2QquEwngwo
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We will be fine, she knew.463Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqAHCb7cyhe
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They would be.
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tags: fanfic, karin, naruto, sasukarin, sasuke
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