Learning the Ropes

Legal Disclaimer: Don’t own Naruto. Oh, but if I did...

(Posted on y-gallery and lj while aff was down. Sorry if you've already seen this chp there)


Sasuke was in agony.

The silence and the darkness and his own racing thoughts had left him lost in time in that lonely procession of minutes. It might have been one hour or several since Neji and Gaara had abandoned him.

Even in the shortest span of time, he could have freed himself. The ability to escape fetters like these was one of the most basic techniques in a ninja’s repertoire, a jutsu so simple they taught it in the Academy. Neji had the skill to put other safeguards in place, of course, to ensure Sasuke couldn’t get free, but he had not, and that was precisely why Sasuke stayed where he was.

Neji was testing him, to see if he’d learned submission. Sasuke knew it was sick, knew that he was being manipulated, but he played Neji’s game. He stayed, endured every bittersweet torment Neji could inflict on him simply because Neji wanted it.

Suddenly, the side door to the storage room opened and Neji returned. Sasuke was unsurprised. The Hyuuga had come four or five times before, to see that Sasuke remained obediently bound and, more importantly, to see that he stayed hard.

The very first time the Hyuuga checked on him, it had dawned on Sasuke that Neji was staying close by, not only to watch him, but to guard him. He let Sasuke see that he would push him, that he would play on his insecurities, but that he had, in the end, a certain respect for limits. Sasuke’s fear that he would be discovered had ebbed long ago.

His erection, however, had not.

Even as weary as he was, his desire returned every time Neji came back to him and teased him with the promise of climax. He needed release so badly now that it ached, but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut regardless of how Neji taunted him.

Sasuke sighed as the older boy’s hand wrapped around his organ.

Neji felt his frustration and laughed. He leaned over Sasuke and purred against his mouth. “Had enough?”

Sasuke whined.

Neji grinned, kissed Sasuke softly once and tugged the makeshift blindfold down around the smaller boy’s neck. He then made a few quick hand seals to loose the ropes and hauled Sasuke up by the cord at his throat.

“You may speak.”

Sasuke sat on the edge of the table, blinking in the relatively bright light of the storage room. The last few hours had been so bizarre, so surreal, that the sight of such ordinary surroundings jarred him.

He looked around for Gaara, didn’t see him.

Neji moved to untangle the ropes still wound around his body, answered his wordless question. “Gaara and I have agreed that you’re mine from now on. He’s not that interested in you anyway.”

Sasuke watched Neji’s hands on the cording as he dropped the slack into a coil on the floor a little at a time. He didn’t know whether to be offended that Gaara didn’t want him, or flattered that Neji wanted him enough to claim him, or worried, because he wasn’t, for all his pretending, sure what he wanted himself.

He craved reassurance. He knew that much. Even though he knew it was stupid to look to Neji for that, the Hyuuga was the only source of it. How to say it without saying it...

“Gaara...you...” Sasuke searched for the word. “You’re lovers?”

“Lovers?” Neji asked, chilly voice tinged with disbelief. “Do we seem loving to you?”

Sasuke felt a twinge of embarrassment that he’d even asked. The Hyuuga boy had made it clear from the start, after all, that this was about pleasure, his pleasure specifically. And Sasuke certainly didn’t want it to be anything more than that. At least, he didn’t think he wanted it. What difference did it make then, who Neji loved?

Neji was eying Sasuke strangely. Sasuke felt him staring, but he pretended to be interested in something in the room’s dim corner. Contemplating his feelings was so much more disconcerting than any humiliation Neji had manufactured to torment him.

“Gaara and I are friends,” Neji told him, thawing, “if you need a name for what we are. And that’s all we’ve ever been to each other.”

“Friends?” Sasuke looked unconvinced. “But you’ve had him.”

Neji smirked. “Once or twice.” His voice went hard again. “Don’t assume that attachments follow necessarily from that.”

Sasuke winced inwardly, heard the warning loud and clear.

“After all,” Neji went on, “Gaara’s no innocent as you must have guessed, but he’s been in love with Lee for years.”

Sasuke looked incredulous. “Love?” he scoffed.

Neji’s pale eyes narrowed at Sasuke’s skepticism, and his voice had an edge to it now. “Is it really so hard for you to believe that Gaara could love? He doesn’t seem the type for deep feelings, but then, neither do you. Do you think you’re the only man alive with pride to protect?”

Sasuke was momentarily taken aback by how thoroughly Neji had misunderstood his disbelief. “I meant that it’s strange he loves Lee,” he protested.

Neji faltered for an instant, so started he forgot to hide it. He didn’t very often misread people.

Sasuke couldn’t help but feel a little smug.

Clearly, Neji was the one with something to protect.

When Neji spoke again though, whatever had sparked feeling in him was gone and his voice was as numb and didactic as always. “Well, it’s no secret why Gaara left Sand,” he was saying. “There was nothing for him there. Maybe you never asked yourself why he came here, of all the places he might’ve chosen?”

Sasuke admitted that he hadn’t. “I don’t share your obsession with other people’s inner lives,” he said drily.

Neji shrugged. “It makes sense for Gaara to love Lee, Gaara who’s never been secure in anyone’s affection. Lee loves so completely.”

“I guess you’d know. You’ve had Lee too?”

Neji was amused by Sasuke’s annoyance. “I haven’t. Lee doesn’t approve of what I do.”

“Still, you slept with Gaara.” Sasuke pressed.

Neji was surprised Sasuke at Sasuke’s insistence. “Does it matter so much to you?”

“It doesn’t matter to me. Might possibly to Lee.”

Sasuke’s disapproval was so plain in his expression that Neji almost laughed when the realization hit him.

“Oh, no. You misunderstood me. I never said that Gaara and Lee are ‘lovers,’ to use your word. They never have been. Lee doesn’t know how Gaara feels about him and Gaara wants it that way.” He looked at Sasuke pointedly. “He’s frightened of his feelings.”

Fear. Yet another emotion Sauske would not have attributed in a million years to the mad sand-nin.

“Does it surprise you that he’s frightened?” Neji shook his head. He found that most people were transparent. He could learn everything there was to know about almost anyone in a handful of hours and he’d never really understood how other people managed to miss the obvious. “You lost everyone, sure,” Neji explained, “but Gaara never really had anyone. If Lee rejects Gaara, it will prove to him what he already thinks he knows, that it’s impossible to love him. If Lee can’t love him, he thinks, Lee who loves everyone, then he’ll know without question that he isn’t worth loving. Could you face a thought like that?”

Sasuke didn’t want to think about it. He changed the subject instead.

“You’re very free with other people’s secrets. Just to be fair, let’s have yours.”

It was Neji’s turn to skirt the question.

“It’s not especially secret. Gaara’s obsession is obvious enough. He’s just fortunate that Lee’s quite as blind to his feelings as Naruto is to yours. Subtle like a kunai in the forehead, both of them.”

Sasuke felt for an instant as if his throat had closed. How did Neji do that, he wondered. How did he manage to hit every weak point and give nothing away in the process? And just when Sasuke thought he’d scored a point, Neji turned his words back on him.

“I’m not in love with Naruto.” Sasuke said it evenly, but without conviction.

The Hyuuga just nodded. “It’s plain the way you follow him with your eyes whenever you’re together.”

Sasuke swallowed hard.

“You didn’t even know that you do that?” Neji mused. “That you watch him all the time? Hm.”

Sasuke’s throat felt dry. “Naruto’s not...”

“Not like you,” Neji finished for him. “No. He’s not.” Neji caught Sasuke’s chin and turned his head to stare into his eyes. “Believe that I’d know if he was.”

Sasuke looked down. He didn’t want to avert his gaze – it felt so much like defeat – but he did it without thinking. He did entirely too much without thinking.

Neji released Sasuke, at last, dropped the last of the cording and helped him off the table. Sasuke’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. The underside of his sensitive organ grazed the front of Neji’s coat as the older boy lowered him to the floor. Neji supported him long enough for him to test his legs, then pulled away.

Despite these last hours bound and exposed, Sasuke felt a sudden irrational desire to cover himself, but when he looked around for his clothes he found they’d been removed.

He glared fire at Neji.

Neji folded slender arms across his chest and leaned against the cabinet at his back. “We both know you might’ve left hours ago,” he explained. “You stayed by choice. That looks like tacit consent to me.”

Sasuke moved to lunge at Neji, winced and stopped. The skin of his chest and the backs of his thighs felt tight, sticky. His muscles were sore, his cock still half erect from Neji’s endless teasing.

Neji smiled at his revulsion, leaned forward, caught the end of the cord around Sasuke’s neck and wound it slowly around his hand. He drew the smaller boy closer until they stood chest to chest. Before Sasuke could push him off, he froze him with a kiss. It was a soft, slow, gentle kiss, so shocking in its own way that Sasuke stopped fighting. He leaned heavily on Neji until he wasn’t even holding himself up and when Neji broke the kiss he just stood there with his head tipped back, looking rumpled and confused.

Neji almost smiled again, but there was something in the other boy’s look that wasn’t right, something lost and sad. “What?” he demanded. “Don’t like kissing.”

“Just not like that,” Sasuke whispered.

Neji had to wonder. The boy would submit himself to all the myriad perversions he could invent and then something as simple and harmless as kissing turned him squishy. What a weird guy, he thought, tugging at the makeshift leash.

Dazed still, Sasuke followed as far as the door as if entranced, then his sanity returned and he balked. He couldn’t go wandering around the streets of Konoha wearing nothing but a thin strap of rope around his neck.

He resisted Neji’s strength, hung back, until Neji turned to face him.

“What now?”

Sasuke looked at Neji, at the door, and back, in total disbelief that the older boy even had to ask.

“Not coming?” Neji asked innocently.

“Not. A. Chance,” Sasuke growled.

Neji frowned at Sasuke’s refusal and he pulled the smaller boy in closer so that Sasuke was forced to notice not only his nakedness, but the difference in their frames.

“I had Gaara move your things to my place,” Neji told him. “That puts three blocks between you and your modesty, but I want one thing clear. You don’t have to do another thing I tell you to do. You’re here because you want to be here and you’re not my prisoner. But this is what I do. I like it. And if you don’t that’s fine. If you’ve had enough and you want to be done, I’ll give you back your things and we’re done. Now, is that what you want?”

Sasuke shook his head. At the moment, he wanted lots of things in a vague sort of way, but not that. “I’m coming,” he murmured.

Neji flung open the door. “A little respect then?”

Sasuke ground his teeth. “Yes, Neji-sama.”