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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7LKPcxEWUK
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Title: midnight talk522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4PFN6t3W3m
By: Kanae (Goth-Punk88 @ ff.net)522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3w5C28Mzu9
Rating: T522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡduyNYIMvH4
Word Count: 1.462522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFuhP5RPjcB
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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKXxzqxUoGA
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“Sasuke…?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBAHny1fQnP
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDHyxhnFlxL
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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?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN3wIHQayHn
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjt6T8QI45T
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“Why would they hate you, Sasuke?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7fKy3FfRJH
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4lVqjCoX9w
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“… I almost killed their mother, didn’t I?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWaymOJaStO
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So this is what this was about, huh?522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdXdilyi3S6
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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.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAHnHT5HUbb
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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…”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKhtaAV377B
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“Sasuke—”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO9D2uyivLn
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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?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFdyBthhMem
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ01IdBHvV8d
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It makes her frown, her hand slipping down his hair and to his neck.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI9QvqOW7Ul
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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.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIJBZi1hyaH
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMbIUBU1gJX
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmufxW9kDQD
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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?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqO9H73jdO7
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0XzCS6Vtpk
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“No,” he agrees thoughtfully, voice soft. “You are not, Karin… But you are no devil, and I—”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuqO4edokMJ
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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.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZq1PwpACT6
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7INTLfOtcL
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz3OH0I8FIL
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Not when she had already forgiven him a long time ago.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMyT5cDE8rL
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She would not play his game.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdCynPulUC5
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“If you feel that way, then why are you with me, Sasuke?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8n8TCsoNV7
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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.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJt1D6RNiBT
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYHAsByCLfG
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“Is that all this is to you, then? You not wanting anyone else to have me?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhtF5LBCejP
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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.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRRvJ2i18aV
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKCDhKw0z8L
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“Then let me hear it, Sasuke.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCmjFb6LQl4
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHenmrk1Fsk
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjf4sDMK697
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“Karin…”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyWclBPP0qk
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And so, she does not back down.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVD4SNpuT3c
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“Say it.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMQRVKDiqXU
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGIhXk6dsbk
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When his obsidian eyes open again, what she sees in them steals the breath right off her lungs.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡteqd3N3jqu
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“Karin, I…”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2fN4GJhPA0
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW6VDvGqLQP
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL8VGN7squy
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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:522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZwTpZC7D06
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“It’s the same for me,” her voice an intimate whisper meant for him and him only. “Always.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfCg6jFmZWM
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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,”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiHGICooGbA
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“… How can you know that?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ6e74vixCp
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“Don’t you trust me?”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ20NfqVh27P
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Sasuke says nothing; he does not need to. Karin smiles. “Then trust me on this, Sasuke.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvavZkDlLQz
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoV1GK0qEKV
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“…Alright.”522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeKFDw3uYzN
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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.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx7Mhpka5bv
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You idiot, Karin thinks, fondly. They love you, already.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl1KbNMrPvq
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As did she. And that was all she needed to know to quiet down her own fears; her own insecurities.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnI13RtU3SX
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We will be fine, she knew.522Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡghIaVO2Et0
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They would be.
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tags: fanfic, karin, naruto, sasukarin, sasuke
ns216.73.216.19da2
