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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE1gfiFS48e
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Title: midnight talk474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxgWlxehK3F
By: Kanae (Goth-Punk88 @ ff.net)474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXGRVP0pe7M
Rating: T474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmToORa9FgC
Word Count: 1.462474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGVD5wVvk3u
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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvzhcPVjPk
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“Sasuke…?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV82AfjriyB
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx4cglw5iXO
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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?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCTYXhSJvbB
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt2DHiQ2Z7d
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“Why would they hate you, Sasuke?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMGO43L14pN
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCqSMTpimN3
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“… I almost killed their mother, didn’t I?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB2aQiV8vGT
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So this is what this was about, huh?474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡojf8wt7KgV
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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.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu9v66vd8LH
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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…”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzXmnU95lj
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“Sasuke—”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOdC88468Cc
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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?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPyoJvyD4FD
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnLzUuZ5NnZ
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It makes her frown, her hand slipping down his hair and to his neck.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlp1xpIRBNp
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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.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9PIRSRbobr
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYSHSG0lDs1
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfetdmC6xMr
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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?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf1d1Rvl34E
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrsOzWhyj9M
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“No,” he agrees thoughtfully, voice soft. “You are not, Karin… But you are no devil, and I—”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ7qwewLJHa
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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.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvE4bMAA4uP
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ18TDw7Cfeb
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLWLHYm0r6p
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Not when she had already forgiven him a long time ago.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk1LqCh0I8B
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She would not play his game.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡinmWdsDqwE
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“If you feel that way, then why are you with me, Sasuke?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2v0S3ufWUs
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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.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdqaEbhj9jy
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHbOWT2XrON
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“Is that all this is to you, then? You not wanting anyone else to have me?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKMmnsqcKZC
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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.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAXkIyXjB0e
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXgxFOD1Ool
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“Then let me hear it, Sasuke.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkivaTzXAUU
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcd76QYuFTd
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJbRRd1oXOY
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“Karin…”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt2BVZclCg1
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And so, she does not back down.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Bo6hNLI4J
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“Say it.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEa1evGiOFN
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa6eU8ifocf
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When his obsidian eyes open again, what she sees in them steals the breath right off her lungs.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtQOpo3icB7
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“Karin, I…”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuy3uJN2hos
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVnfveR9ikd
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZSUMaY5vVn
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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:474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZqImil6skd
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“It’s the same for me,” her voice an intimate whisper meant for him and him only. “Always.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYx45Sc4Br1
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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,”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXllUzej7nk
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“… How can you know that?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHrZ0Wao9xl
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“Don’t you trust me?”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmxvnUwBc3U
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Sasuke says nothing; he does not need to. Karin smiles. “Then trust me on this, Sasuke.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnP7YBi3V5u
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxwiVtiJxEY
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“…Alright.”474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz2Q1PWOtTk
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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.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIvOpWwcTC2
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You idiot, Karin thinks, fondly. They love you, already.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYcaAv3pN0E
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As did she. And that was all she needed to know to quiet down her own fears; her own insecurities.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYPVgQ6mDEp
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We will be fine, she knew.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5fE9Z6t4s7
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They would be.
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tags: fanfic, karin, naruto, sasukarin, sasuke
ns3.15.10.218da2
