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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrcscKrmJls
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Title: midnight talk370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLYGLO1DLVD
By: Kanae (Goth-Punk88 @ ff.net)370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8MELGWYGSR
Rating: T370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx8HVRzNHpq
Word Count: 1.462370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ13JUkXO7PS
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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnO2v40lAzn
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“Sasuke…?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOYwR6zmARO
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKnt8RAVqdm
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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?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDTROsKOaKb
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlkSLX5tsfp
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“Why would they hate you, Sasuke?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvkFL3GU51p
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp5NAEm5ANI
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“… I almost killed their mother, didn’t I?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCK9E0ZulEa
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So this is what this was about, huh?370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡytHhnDFC9x
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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.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9KVCmfWphx
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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…”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcPcHS08J1U
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“Sasuke—”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1DAFcqEMCL
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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?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkiWkXwPdMM
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSyrcEKDi2r
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It makes her frown, her hand slipping down his hair and to his neck.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvgUJQAFJ2h
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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.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTlNyTxuskG
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEabevMRQcU
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd3EKT6IsQs
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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?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZr24TPd9qS
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCiFasahtSd
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“No,” he agrees thoughtfully, voice soft. “You are not, Karin… But you are no devil, and I—”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO2wLSQKRqW
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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.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpcMrul5Jad
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡffxouYbqpf
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrLC4C9FHm5
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Not when she had already forgiven him a long time ago.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2hxnMLdGxF
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She would not play his game.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBaIuBMKR1X
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“If you feel that way, then why are you with me, Sasuke?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAAh36H11di
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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.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAd31OGA317
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1y25layuDl
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“Is that all this is to you, then? You not wanting anyone else to have me?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqGx3ldKeSJ
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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.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxWwDBsilpG
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDo5F5d4Z3y
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“Then let me hear it, Sasuke.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6mds4k70aQ
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvJQU1YXdfr
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡedJL8wtjve
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“Karin…”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt2NWdWETKf
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And so, she does not back down.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7qS4K3z2rf
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“Say it.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIMvISgDOsi
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0COFQzDKEx
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When his obsidian eyes open again, what she sees in them steals the breath right off her lungs.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw4yrSmL5Ij
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“Karin, I…”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQkep5vfWW9
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFm7rte72eh
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxu8C5ArOsO
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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:370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcELBPhuA8W
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“It’s the same for me,” her voice an intimate whisper meant for him and him only. “Always.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpWqa0OU1qb
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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,”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLnE98BBvXX
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“… How can you know that?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡva4i0qinkm
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“Don’t you trust me?”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcT18WfjduR
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Sasuke says nothing; he does not need to. Karin smiles. “Then trust me on this, Sasuke.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDcy2n8Dkiy
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYl0AgzzspN
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“…Alright.”370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDrldMtIgav
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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.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsvLxU0loO1
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You idiot, Karin thinks, fondly. They love you, already.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnsWf5mmiA1
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As did she. And that was all she needed to know to quiet down her own fears; her own insecurities.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb1Gt7KhSYr
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We will be fine, she knew.370Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpDAHJFQ2uT
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They would be.
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tags: fanfic, karin, naruto, sasukarin, sasuke
ns 15.158.61.17da2
