Facets

Chapter Two . For Better or Worse

Sliding into her is like sliding into some exquisite oil.

She is always ready for him. She is always willing to accept him, even in the dead of night, when he awakens, and finds her in his arms. When he comes back from missions, battered and bruised and feeling alive, she makes herself available to him, for she, too, knows that sometimes brushing death can be the one thing to make one truly appreciate life.

He has come to cherish the sounds she makes. The pants, the unintelligible whispers, the speechless mewls – they are for him, and him alone, to hear.

As she shifts beneath him, voicing broken pleas, entreating for him to continue and for him not to stop, he only gives a slight smirk, immediately slowing his actions, prompting a stronger reaction from her, as she cries out in frustration and pleasure.

He rarely denies her anything. But tonight, he feels it is necessary, and since she has not yet forced him into a more dominant role, he feels entitled to take his leisure of her body.

After all, she has never complained about it.

He can feel her legs sliding up past his thighs, to join loosely around his hips, pressing gently, to urge him closer. It is almost ritual between them, as he presses himself further into her, before her legs tighten around his hips.

He doesn't really listen as a ragged moan tears its way from her throat, mostly because he is preoccupied with trying to supress one of his own. He is lost inside her; the battle was over long ago, and they both know it.

He feels as though sparks have gone off behind his eyelids, and he's wedged firmly between her thighs, and it certainly wasn't as though they were ever particularly careful to begin with -
[[after all, she has never told him not to]]
- and he's finishing inside her, and she feels as though her body might explode, traitorous as it is.

His arms lose strength for a moment, and he gingerly lays atop her for a moment, his breath catching in his throat, his senses wearing off from the shock that completion always seemed to bring.

He does not remain in contact with her for long, moving himself to the side, and an appropriate distance away, to avoid any uninvited touches on her behalf.

That is one of the rules he made.

She has never tried to break it.

But tonight - for whatever reason - she does. Rather hesitantly at first, one of her small, graceful hands brushing against his, trailing softly up his arm.

He started at first, but calmed himself rather quickly. After all, what did lovers do, if not touch each other? After all, -
[[she was always the one to wash blood out of his hair after a hard mission ( neither of them would have it any other way )]]
- they had been 'together' for a few years. It was natural.

Normal.

His hand reached towards the nightstand, pulling open the drawer a little less than carefully, almost upending the drawer from its tracks, as he searches by touch, trying to find one specific thing. His finger brushes against something suspiciously soft, and he pulls it out. He does not bother to return the drawer along its tracks, as he rolls over, to face the smooth, graceful back of his partner. “Sakura…”

“…yeah?” She replies, after a long minute. He can recognize that she is tired, and believes he can recognize an undertone of disapproval. She rolls onto her stomach, her head shifting in his direction, her half-open green eyes watching him.

He knows that she is not as tired as she wants him to think.

“I want you to take this.” He holds out his hand, clutching whatever he had pulled from his nightstand.

After a long moment, she turns to face him, the blanket catching with her movement, and dragging down, until the majority of her modest chest is visible. She makes no move to cover herself, mostly because she is unsure what is expected of her. She takes it, and after a moment of feeling it, discovers it to be a small jewelry box. “Oh, Sasuke-kun…”

“Open it.” His tone of voice brooks no room for her to argue.

She opens the box, and feels inside, finding a ring. “Sasuke… You can’t be… Are you…?”

Instead of an outpouring of acceptance or denial of his sudden proposal, she seemed…lost, somehow. She was instead questioning it, and sounded as though she were trying to convince herself of the idea.

“Yes. I want you to be my wife, Sakura.”

“I…” She trailed off, studying the ring in the palm of her hand for a long moment, her eyes jumping between him and the ring. “I…don’t know what to say, Sasuke…”

“…say yes, Sakura. Be my wife. Help me give the Uchiha family a solid foundation. Have my children. You would do well, I think, as a woman of my clan. My woman.”

He could see the indecision in her eyes. He did not like it. She was supposed to say yes, and agreed to marry him. She was not supposed to look as though she were caught between a rock and a hard place.

“I…just need some time…to think, Sasuke.” She said, her voice soft, and rather unlike herself, at the moment.

“I want you to wear it, as you think.” He said, his voice carefully neutral, trying not to betray what he was feeling at the moment.

He was unsure of himself.

Hesitantly, she slipped the cool band onto the ring finger of her right hand. It was not a yes. It was not a no.

But it was a promise to think.

Feeling the bed rock, as Sasuke turned over, to face away from her, she made the same movements, still staring at the ring that now stood out on her right hand.

Sasuke had just asked her to marry him. That was something she had competed for since she was but a child. And she had won him, in the end.

This was what she had wanted. This was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

…wasn’t it?

“…merry Christmas, Sakura.” His voice, as quiet as ever, spoke to her in the dark, though it was, perhaps, a little softer than it usually would have been.

"...merry Christmas, Sasuke." She whispered, even as she disentangled a blonde hair from the blanket, to drop it carefully behind the headboard.

He had his infidelities; she had hers. She had never expected him to be that faithful, anyways. She certainly wasn't.

...but at least her transgressions were discreet.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And here we see the complications. Sakura obviously knows that she isn't holding Sasuke's complete attention, hence her trysts with Kakashi. But does Sasuke what she does while he's in another woman's arms..?

...and yes, short chapter for Sasuke. I didn't know where to go with it, only that it had to be second in line.