ONESHOT - SASUKARIN; MIDNIGHT TALK
Fellow SK shippers and I have been discussing how do we envision Sasuke and Karin as parents; and while I was thinking about that I was hit by a sudden mental picture. And so, this little drabble-turned-one-shot was born.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLODGKebz3K
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Title: midnight talk591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKk20t1PQdN
By: Kanae (Goth-Punk88 @ ff.net)591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr22iPFDkZT
Rating: T591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbZnTDVOS6F
Word Count: 1.462591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbe0tOTpY28
Author's Notes: Takes place post-series.
midnight talk;
A spark of alert flashes through her consciousness, briskly pulling her back from slumber. For a moment, she is disoriented—but then she feels it. That ghost of a caress, his finger absentmindedly tracing that particular spot above her left breast. The spot that was buried underneath bite marks but that he somehow never failed to find.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfs4aPkvapY
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“Sasuke…?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ4syxTqEt1
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He does not reply straight away; rather, his body speaks for him—the hold of the arm circling her waist strengthening, his fingertips pressing against the tender skin of her hip and his toes coming to rest against her ankle. But when his voice joins his body language, it is nothing more than a mere murmur.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOYfZVcSPvu
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“…What if I’m not a good father, Karin?” he inquires, his breath tickling her bare breast. “What if… they hate me?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6FBv7asxEB
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His free hand travels from her collarbones to her swollen belly, and Karin has to resist the urge to swat it away out of annoyance at his insecurities. Letting such a thing get to him, this was so unlike him.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdWGLZ517sD
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“Why would they hate you, Sasuke?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUlKkB8INR5
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His fingers move up, up and come to lightly trace the tear-shaped scar that both of them knew only too well, and she feels it again, then—that fluctuation in his chakra. That drop of mud that had sent ripples to what used to be a peaceful current and that had pulled Karin back from her own rest.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaAjabznMhT
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“… I almost killed their mother, didn’t I?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLkh2Zom7cS
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So this is what this was about, huh?591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4JJUGqNnzz
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Karin sighs, raising her hand and letting her fingers entwine with locks of Sasuke’s jet-black hair. “We’ve been over this before, Sasuke.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgoRoWjtONh
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“I know,” he acknowledges, but his chakra is still stirring and his voice is still a strained whisper. “I know, Karin. But…”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXw2UXclKXQ
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“Sasuke—”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlyRmGvEDNQ
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“—What I did was… still is unforgivable,” he says, his voice gaining strength in order to overpower her complaints. “What right do I have to be the father of your children, Karin?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyUt7lFPp67
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Their eyes meet, then. Karin’s glasses lie discarded on the nightstand, but she does not need them—not when he was this close, with his head lying on the crook of her neck. Not even the darkness of the room could prevent Karin from reading the look in his eyes as clearly as she could read the turmoil swimming inside his chakra.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMgt92rYWM0
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It makes her frown, her hand slipping down his hair and to his neck.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNMq0Wolw4F
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“Don’t be stupid, Sasuke. This isn’t about rights—you are the father of my children, whether you like it or not. It’s too late to turn back, now.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5400E8NCw3
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I wouldn’t turn back even if I could, is what remains unsaid, but Karin hopes Sasuke will be able to pick it up from her gaze, from her touch. It is an undeniable truth that Sasuke should know well by now, and Karin is not going to indulge him by voicing it aloud.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0AZan8eMhF
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So focused is she on her thoughts that she misses his movements. When his warm fingers come to lay against her cheek, delicately, as if afraid that she would disappear with the lightest of touches, Karin finds her breath leaving her in the form of a stifled gasp.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN6u7T3pIHY
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“Why…?” he asks, his eyes boring into hers, and Karin finds her edges rounding and becoming cotton-soft under his touch and the urgency behind his gaze. “Why did you give me a second chance, Karin? Why… why do you allow me to stay by your side, despite everything I’ve done?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrcIYrhSu3F
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“I’m… no saint myself, Sasuke,” Karin finds herself muttering, but anything she may have added slips through her mind and remains forgotten, as Sasuke pushes back the bangs from her forehead and begins to trace the contours of her face.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUXmtG5UPC5
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“No,” he agrees thoughtfully, voice soft. “You are not, Karin… But you are no devil, and I—”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoDYeW4lADi
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“A man,” Karin cuts in, firmly, and Sasuke’s fingers halt their ministrations. “You are nothing but a man, Sasuke. And men make mistakes.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPzU3dK43ov
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“…Mistakes that could’ve cost your life, Karin,” Sasuke reminds her, his eyes narrowing. Karin’s mirror his look, faded annoyance beginning to come back to life yet again.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpxD3lGT5UF
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How many times would they have to go through this before Sasuke let it go? When would he learn that clinging onto the past never did any good? All his mistakes—all the pain he caused himself and those surrounding them steamed from that stubbornness of his, from that apparent incapability of living the present for what it was. And Karin—Karin refused to let him continue to chastise himself in her name’s sake.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcfmGUTg2Fk
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Not when she had already forgiven him a long time ago.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6mab5KfJOC
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She would not play his game.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrb5qipSOvT
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“If you feel that way, then why are you with me, Sasuke?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkiCCw1U9XN
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“… Because I’m selfish,” he replies after a breath, and his fingertips are tracing her lips, now, “I’ve always been selfish, Karin. You know that well.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0yJ1Yp4bG
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A ghost of a smile curves the corner of Karin’s lips, but she forces herself to hide it before he could have the chance to notice it through his touch. It was no time to humor him; not yet, at least.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQEpfEA7E8J
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“Is that all this is to you, then? You not wanting anyone else to have me?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmK0YEAEZ3U
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“No,” Sasuke states, and he is frowning, as if indignant by the suggestion alone. “You know that’s not how it is, Karin.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlDCU0MgF3X
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Oh, she knew. Of course, she knew, she would not be with him otherwise. But Sasuke needed to learn how to say it; because while she did not need to hear it, his children would.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgjQYPwOf8j
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“Then let me hear it, Sasuke.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5DhFNLeGkt
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There is hesitance showcased in his eyes and expressed through the way his fingertips linger, unmoving, ghosting over her cheeks; but Karin did not allow herself to feel like she was being unfair to him, asking him to say words that she had yet to say aloud herself. But the difference was that Karin knew how to do so; she had not forgotten.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpTfB2mfgXk
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But Sasuke? Sasuke had. And Karin knew that was one of the thorns that kept jabbing at him whenever his eyes flickered across her swollen belly. A thorn embodied by the scar that remained as a memento right above her heart.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7GIWCmNt4z
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“Karin…”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoGD1A9PK83
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And so, she does not back down.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsiSi8CFokK
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“Say it.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEBkaj1tKBA
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Sasuke heaves in a sigh and closes his eyes for a long moment, defeated. Karin reaches out, then—reaches out and traces his face with the same adoration with which he had been tracing hers, using her warm touch as encouragement.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKrpnbLtq0X
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When his obsidian eyes open again, what she sees in them steals the breath right off her lungs.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgnvFezTmrY
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“Karin, I…”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOPIaor3Tb
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His voice fades into silence as the words stumble over each other inside his throat, inexperienced, alien to his lips but overpowering in their truth—and so Sasuke leans in and lets his lips speak wordlessly directly to Karin’s own, which answer their call with a hunger that would never cease to set his very veins aflame.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZevkeExtzL
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When they part, Karin’s arms, which were circling his neck, hold him in place; and so he lets his forehead lay against hers, his lips lightly brushing her own with every word he spoke.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYAUaMXZ6i8
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“I want you, Karin,” are the words he says aloud, but Karin hears beyond them and into the feelings he expressed through his kiss—through his gaze, through his touch. And it is to them that she replies:591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrm6CeUeVwU
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“It’s the same for me,” her voice an intimate whisper meant for him and him only. “Always.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHj6mQOmKrw
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Her name leaves his lips in the form of a shaky breath, and Karin holds him close, gives him solace in the modest curve of her breasts. “They won’t hate you, Sasuke,”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡstjDVJK7j7
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“… How can you know that?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF6sYjnQDqM
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“Don’t you trust me?”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ96CGA9ersx
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Sasuke says nothing; he does not need to. Karin smiles. “Then trust me on this, Sasuke.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWd3muYdW0N
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There is no way they will hate you, is what Karin tells him without words as she plays with his hair. Not if you look at them the way you looked at me just now.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpzETEv7euF
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“…Alright.”591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFjUs59LFQZ
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Karin’s gaze darts to his face, and she is pleased to see a peaceful expression taking over his features and reflecting on his chakra. The sight softens her smile, and she feels a surge of warmth expanding through her body as Sasuke unconsciously places his palm over her belly, the chakra of the two beings resting inside stirring to answer his call.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡouKLLyQo04
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You idiot, Karin thinks, fondly. They love you, already.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNcewsU2cE8
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As did she. And that was all she needed to know to quiet down her own fears; her own insecurities.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUz3tfDljQD
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We will be fine, she knew.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ79tSTllbUc
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They would be.
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tags: fanfic, karin, naruto, sasukarin, sasuke
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