Sub Rosa

NB: warning for chapter - triggering aspects.

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The ship is dark and labyrinthine. Karin can sense small creatures scuttling through the darkness as she descends lower and lower into the belly of the ship. They sound like the rattling of seashells against glass, but every time she turns towards the sound, they are no longer there. It is unnerving.

Eventually, she ducks into a room – her room, she knows somehow – and takes off the cloak that has been sitting on her shoulders. Vaguely, she realizes that she'd been wearing a dress before and wonders what had happened to it. The thought fades quickly, unimportant, and she runs her hand over the books on the shelf.

The Answers catches her eye. It is red, leatherbound, and deceptively thin. The pages are translucent yellow vellum and shimmer with opalescence, but it is the words that captivate her: everything she had ever wondered, the answers to the whole universe itself, reality and dreams, and the nature of what comes after are there in plain text. Reluctantly, she puts it away and moves on, avoiding touching the vase of Forget-Me-Nots.

There is a knock at the door.

Karin turns, watching as it opens.

It's Sasuke. The knuckles of his other hand still rest against the wood, even as he grips the doorknob. He is as he was before, no trace of the red clouds and darkness clinging to him.

Beneath her feet, the floor turns to earth and the walls coil into spiraling patterns. They are back in the South Base.

"There you are," he says, entering. "I've been looking for you."

"Do they know you're here?" she asks.

Sasuke shrugs, silently shutting the door behind him. "They don't care what I do, as long as I fulfill my function in the end."

He is a container, and waiting to be used, she knows this.

Then, he is kissing her hungrily, his fingers tangling in her hair.

Her clothes are gone, she doesn't know or care where. She's busy tugging at his belt and stumbling backwards as he pushes her with kisses towards the bed. The rope comes free with a sharp pull, sending the bunched fabric spilling to the ground. His pants follow and then the two of them are falling backwards towards the bed.

"Karin," he says between kisses. "Let me..."

One of his hands fumbles at her breast, the other grips the bed sheet, and his hair ghosts across her skin as he slowly begins to trail kisses down her throat and chest.

Karin gasps, wrapping her legs around his waist. She doesn't want him to stop. She loves him and this is what she wants.

His lips find her nipple and tug on it teasingly. "Let me," he says and flicks his tongue against it. "Let me in."

"Sasuke, please," she murmurs, threading a hand through his hair. Her other hand trails desperately against his face, one part soothing and one part begging.

He leans back, raising his head, and with a single thrust of his hips, he is inside her. The pace he sets is quick and steady, his hands stroking and caressing her body almost forcefully.

Karin leans back until she can see the wall behind her, moaning.

The wall twists and coils, hissing as the spirals on it turn into snakes.

There's something wrong.

Karin raises her head to see her lover.

Sasuke looks down at her, a dark smile on his lips and eyes glowing red with the Sharingan. The tomoe spin dizzyingly and reform into twin six pointed stars. His caresses become more forceful, his thrusts rough and terror floods her veins.

"Karin," he says, smiling cruelly, "Thank you for letting me in."

His fingers seep into her skin, digging through flesh and muscle and bone and the walls are closing in, snakes and darkness creeping up over her and he is smiling, smiling as he sinks into her skin, deeper and deeper.

Karin screams.

She doesn't wake.