Clean Through

AN: Again, lack of italics may cause confusion, but I'm too lazy to add in the html coding for every one. Blame AFFnets upload file thingy which never will work for me. *woe*

Winter has started to set in with an icy finality in Fire Country. Sakura's breath puffs out in hazy clouds as she runs. And the tree branches crackle with every step.

She huddles further into her wool cloak, hugging herself in the futile attempt to keep warm. The air cuts at her face and neck; it wears at her, rubs her raw as the shadows lengthen throughout the day and the sun sets behind them.

Naruto, as usual, seems impervious to the climate change. He pushes the group to run faster despite Kakashi's repeated warnings against straying too far ahead and risking separation. But he won't be collared and leashed, not when news of Sasuke is on the line. It dangles just before his face like a tangibly delicious morsel of meat, raw and driving him.

At first she'd thought he'd increased his speed as the day wore on, the temptation too much for him, but then she realized: it was she's who'd started to slow and fall behind.

It's frustrating but she can't deny that she holds the lowest stamina of the five. Yamato shoots her a look from his position at the rear but keeps his thoughts to himself. Sai drops back from directly in front of her and runs along side, a queer grin peeking at the corners of his lips.

His breathing is untraceable in the dusk air, and she wonders not for the first time whether he's really human.

“Shall I carry your bags, Hime-sama? Perhaps if you lost a little weight you could better keep the pace?”

Sakura re-shoulders her pack, scowling as she doubles her stride, and fights the urge to take a sudden swing at her dark-haired teammate. As much as she'd love to hear him shatter every icy limb from here to the ground, it wouldn't be the most conducive response for the mission.

Sai languidly weaves between a cluster of branches, disappearing around the side of a thick oak trunk before slipping back into place at her side. His bodily is perfectly fluid like a dancer, in harmony with itself and nature. He makes it look effortless when she feels as if she has to force herself through, cutting through air like water with her torso angled forward, her legs pumping against the sky.

The prick has been pestering her since they'd left that morning. What exactly has gotten into him? Though it's true most of his offers are backhanded insults. If he thinks she doesn't belong on the mission as a chuunin he should just say so. No matter how hard she's worked up till this point, traveling with three ANBU class and a jinchuuriki, she's the weakest link in the chain anyway she looks at it.

“I'm fine, thanks.”

Naruto glances back, features squinted in concern. For a moment it looks as if he'd forgotten she was even there, like she's caught him in that moment between wake and sleep when reality was just fantasy and now he's not quite sure that reality is really her. Her chest tightens at the look of confused anguish in his blue eyes. It's obvious he's torn between slowing for her sake and pushing himself harder for Sasuke's. But she doesn't want that, not from him. Naruto should never have to choose.

Digging in her back pouch, she produces a small soldier pill, rolls the shiny, black ball between two fingers.

“Naruto-kun,” Kakashi calls from ahead of her. “I'm getting tired as well. Let's stop for the night.”

“Kakashi-sensei.” She's not a little girl to be protected. She's not some god damned china doll. “I don't need your—.”

“We're going to need to be at full potential should we actually run into Itachi,” Yamato cuts in, siding with his senior. “And the sun is already falling.”

For a moment Naruto doesn't answer, doesn't even look back as he sprints through the trees and she wonders if he's considering leaving them all behind. But then he grunts his understanding and drops down into the chill darkness below.

It's not long before they've eaten and begun to settle down for the night.

He scoots his sleeping bag up along side hers, head ducked and looking sheepish as he waits for her reaction. He knows she's not exactly comfortable with his attention in public, but the past couple nights have been promising enough and he's wound tight enough from the pressure of the mission that he's pushing her anyway. And in a way, he needs this—for her to acknowledge him before the rest of their team.

She looks up, surprised, hands stilling where she digs through her bag. He'd been driving himself so hard, completely focused on the mission the whole day (ignoring her) that she'd assumed they'd be operating much in the way they'd always had, before. By which she means as 'teammates' and nothing more.

It was true that Naruto usually kept closer to her than he did to Sai, but he'd never actually slept along side her before, bodily within arm's reach—he was one to plop down without thought or concern some short distance away, instantly comfortable wherever—and she has the nagging feeling he's secretly asking for more than to just align his sleeping bag to hers. A quick glance around the fire and she spots Yamato's face, eerily shadow cast as he watches her, and she looks back to the contents of her bag, cheeks hot at the implication. Dammit, Naruto.

For the briefest of moments, she wants to refuse him. She could blame it on the embarrassment due to the presence of their jounin instructors, but if she's honest with herself the urge is mostly spiteful. Okay, so maybe she resents him a little for neglecting her all damn day. Why should she have to cater to his desires on a whim now?

But she understands: touch is important to him—he who grew up without the assuring caresses of a mother, who had been shunned by the villagers for as long as he could remember. And it's obvious to anyone how much the ache for Sasuke is weighing on him. It's settled in the stiffness to his shoulder blades and in the jut of his clenched jaw. Standing there, looking down at her with those darkened blue eyes, he looks like he'll break if he doesn't start taking better care of himself, if someone doesn't take care of him for him while he's busy running himself into the ground over their rogue teammate. She wants to tell him that they'll find him together, that he doesn't have to shoulder the burden alone, so she unzips the length of her sleeping bag and spreads it out between them, the resulting space wide enough for two people, before she resumes searching through her pack. It's the only invitation he's going to get.

Luckily for her, the barest of concessions is all Naruto ever needs. His face lights up at her acceptance, and he's quick to join her on the blanket, unzipping his own bag to serve as a cover.

He's started to exclaim how much better it will be by sharing body heat.

He pauses, both his outburst and the unzipping, shooting a glare to the side as Sai unfurls his own sleeping bag. “What the hell do you think you're doing, bastard?”

Sai smiles, doesn't bother to look up where he smooths the crinkles from the surface of his area. “I read the best way to form a bond between and man and a woman—”

“Hell fucking no!”

Naruto's up and on his feet faster than Sakura can attempt to calm him. Sai remains crouching but quietly grips the short-sword's hilt on his back. She's effectively caught between the two and not at all in the mood for a fight.

“Naruto!” the pleading is evident in her voice as she tries to diffuse her red-hot teammate. “Hey, come on. It's just his way of apologizing. Right, Sai?”

She shoots him a look that begs Lie, lie, for the love of God lie!

For his part he lowers his hand from his weapon, drops the smile. “If you want to think of it that way.”

It's not a 'yes' but it's also not a correction so she jumps on it.

“See? Just a misunderstanding.” She's forcing her own version of a placating smile, and Sai tenses reflexively. He's learned not to trust her smiles but not which smiles are for what or even which smiles are fake.

Naruto on the other hand, can spot an empty expression from her a mile away. He doesn't look convinced. In fact, he looks suspiciously like he's pouting. Or considering jumping Sai anyway, or both.

She reaches up to tug at the jacket sleeve around his wrist and he finally relents, plopping back down onto the spread sleeping bag, arms crossed over his chest and scowling. “Hmph.”

She's not foolish enough to think he's bought her explanation; he's an idiot but often only when he wants to be. And often only for whom he wants to be. So as a distraction she extracts a small vial of oil from within her pack and offers it to him. She makes sure her fingers brush the sensitive under-skin of his wrist as she asks, “Help me rub it in, would you? My legs are killing me.”

Well, it's not completely a coy act, she had actually been digging for the treatment before he interrupted her the first time.

Naruto uncorks the bottle, never taking his eyes off Sai. Irritatingly, her offer doesn't seem to affect him in the way she'd planned. She makes to grab for the bottle, face tinged with embarrassment, when he instructs Sai to, “Move over on this side. And if you so much as touch Sakura-chan, I'll kill you.”

Her eyes are wide at his reaction; it halts her pathetic attempt to reclaim the bottle. It's like she doesn't even exist in this moment even as he refers to her. Why does she suddenly want to grab him, force him to recognize her and command his attention? But it's not like he's completely forgotten her; it's an inexplicable yearning and makes her feel both childish and petty.

Surprisingly, Sai is quick to comply. Though she could have done without the shrugged, “Fine. I'm uninterested in the hollow between her thighs.”

From the other side of the fire, Kakashi coughs, and Sakura buries her face in her hands. This is all Naruto's fault, the dumbass.

“Bastard—”

“Don't worry,” Sai cuts off Naruto's red-hot protest. He rubs flat the lines from his sleeping bag with long, deliberate strokes where he lays it out by Naruto's side. “I am not interested in yours either.”

Under the covers it's unbelievably warm. It's the warmth of shared body heat but not just that: more so it's the warmth of comfort, of teammate. Of Naruto.

She thinks she could stay cuddled in his heat forever, sleeping life away, entwined together. But there's something they both have to settle first. Someone they can't leave behind. It makes his breathing bittersweet where it blasts against her collarbone in hot huffs—he's always like that when they lie together, clinging, trying to bury himself in her embrace even in unconsciousness.

His breath hitches once and she knows he's woken from a bad dream, fingers tensing against her damp skin, while she this whole time hasn't even been able to shut her eyes. He pulls back a little, eyes clouded and realizing she's awake. They're such a dark blue they look black, but they're still his, still filling slowly with his awareness and spirit even under the hue of night.

What time is it? he asks without asking at all, without opening his mouth so much as squinting the features of his face before propping up on one elbow, glancing around them for the dark shapes of their slumbering travel mates.

“Not time yet,” she whispers and he nods, slipping back down beside her, breathing out heavily and for once not knowing what to say. He doesn't even remember what woke him or what he'd dreamed, but he's certain it involved Sasuke from the bad feeling that's been left in the center of his chest like some old wound agitated by the deepening in weather.

“Worried?” he replies, referring to her similar state of un-sleep.

Maybe he does it for his own comfort, or maybe he does it for hers, but either way his hands are suddenly wandering the dips and curves of her body, and she doesn't stop them. His fingers slip down the front of her elastic shorts, and he has the image of her moaning his name waking their sensei. It makes his heart quicken, lower parts to his body tighten.

“Naruto. . .”

She squirms against his touch, but he tries to persuade her by licking a hot trail down her neck. Her skin is salty.

“I'll be quiet,” he pleads in a hushed tone. “Let me take your mind off him—it. Off it.” Oops. Bad slip.

He half understands why she pushes the top cover aside and disentangles herself from his hand before stalking off into the woods with all the grace of an enraged boar, but he doesn't want to admit it to himself.

“W-what'd I do?”

Maybe, maybe she had just needed to relieve herself. Maybe she's not actually mad at him, so he waits impatiently for her return, feeling like he's probably, definitely fucked up.

A good ten minutes later and he's started to feel worried (for both her safety and himself in general) and after a minute to contemplate his chances of coming back alive, sneaks off after her. He forgets his shoes, but doesn't notice until he steps on a particularly squishy spot of a large, fallen log.

His leg crashes through, and he bites back a painful yelp. He can see her up ahead though, shivering with her back to him, so he hurriedly works his leg free and limp-hops up to her.

“Hey, Sakura-chan, what's wrong? If you're not in the mood, I. . .” his voice trails off, and for a minute neither break the silence. All he can think about is the throb, throb, throb along the inside of his thigh and the way she still hasn't turned around.

“Why do you seem to think the only way to fit into my life is as some kind of pleasure source?”

He feels his cheeks flush at the accusation, a small scoff caught in the back of his throat. I wasn't— He wants to deny it, but he can't because it's partially the truth. “Isn't it?”

She turns on him, and he can tell from the set of her jaw that it wasn't the right thing to say, but he'll be damned if he backs down on this one. She's the one who propositioned him first, who openly accepted the terms to using him. What is he supposed to be to her otherwise?

“You've been a teammate long enough.”

Sakura talks a lot with her anger so he hopes she doesn't mean it. But the fact that she makes teammate sound like a downgrade—like nothing, like when she says it she doesn't mean companion—stings. He deflates at the threat, voice quieter when he asks earnestly, “I suppose that's good enough for you then, Sakura-chan?”

You really wouldn't care if that's all I was?

For her part, she looks embarrassed. She twirls a strand of pink hair around one finger. Refuses to meet his eyes. “I didn't mean it that way,” she offers finally, but the words sound forced and hollow. “I just don't want you to think. . . that you have to earn your keep. You don't always have to—if you're worried, sometimes I can comfort you.”

She looks to him then and her eyes are pleading for him to understand. But she can't mean what he thinks he just heard. Life has never been that good to him.

“Sa-Sakura-chan. . .”

She drops down to her knees then, fingers reaching for the waistband to his pants, and his feet are frozen and his leg still aches but he doesn't dream of telling her 'no'.

When her hot lips encircle an entirely different area of throbbing, her tongue glazing his skin as she swallows him inch by agonizing inch, he reaches an arm in the empty air, near flailing, desperate for a support to cling to. It's embarrassing but he can't stop the shuddering, can't quiet the whimpers that rip from his throat.

They leave before breakfast and dawn, before the branches have time to defrost and freeze over again, running from the onset because time is against them. This time Naruto keeps a slower pace (though not by much), glancing back whenever Sai moves in to 'converse' with Sakura.

Sometimes when he looks back to her, the emotion in his eyes surprises her because while he often looks torn between his desires or full of longing for both his precious people or even jealous of the affection she shows toward others, she's never seen him look possessive before. It's not that she thinks he'd overstep his bounds—she's certain he knows she'd pummel him for such behavior, but the heaviness to that gaze affects her.

The incomprehensible way that it makes her feel (craving, thrill, fear?)—it's the first real indication she's had that something significant has changed in their relationship.