Stages of Love: Team 7 Style
Sum of Unequal Parts
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Title: Sum of Unequal Parts
Author: mischief maker
Theme: Intimacy
Rating: R for language
Author's Notes: This isn’t at all what I’d intended to
write, but it’s what came out. >.>
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto.
Sakura frowned as Sasuke slid out of bed and began pulling
on his pants without so much as a passing glance in her direction. It had been three
months since that day at the training grounds, and it was still like this with him. It wasn’t as if she really expected him
to cuddle with her and Naruto or even just sit and talk, but… It dawned on her
that she really had no idea what she had expected from him. She just knew
It was almost as if he simply flicked a switch and became
someone else when they were in bed. But as soon as it was over, he went back to
being the same old Sasuke. Sakura understood he wasn’t one to outwardly show
affection, but to simply act as if nothing had changed between them… She tried
to not fault him for it, but she couldn’t deny the emptiness his actions – or
inaction as it tended to be – evoked within her.
He would protect either of them with his life; she knew
that. Shouldn’t that be enough? Was it selfish of her to want more, to be more
than a teammate to him?
What were they to
each other now? Her best guess was something slightly more than fuck buddies (and
oh, how she hated that phrase) yet still less than involved. Perhaps the
problem was that it meant something different to each of them. Maybe it
She had no doubt that to Naruto, she was his girlfriend, and
Sasuke was – as of the incident two
weeks ago anyway – his boyfriend, if it could even be summed up by such
insignificant words. They were his. She
could see it in the way he looked at them with that soft smile even as they
bickered. The way he seized every opportunity possible just to
touch them – a hand on a back, a brush of her hair, a perfectly timed bumping
of shoulders – perhaps to prove to himself they were there and that this was
real. The way morning had found them sandwiched together with his limbs wrapped
around both of them that time he’d convinced them to stay the night. Upon
waking, Sasuke had quickly slipped back into brooding mode and immediately left
to get some breakfast, while Naruto had simply shrugged it off as he did
everything else.
I wish
slip into the bathroom. Relationships were a lot of work under normal
circumstances, and this, if it even qualified, was anything but normal. She
idly wondered what they’d gotten themselves into.
She was reminded, though, as Naruto kissed her shoulder and
snuggled up flush against her back that she didn’t have to figure it all out at
once. The only thing she needed to do at that moment was let Naruto pet her
hair as they basked in the afterglow, bittersweet as it may be.