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writer's block + teamwork sideficcy thing -- incomplete
*sigh* it's official, I've got that damn writer's block again. I've been trying to write more Teamwork for weeks now and the few lines I managed to add to the big block of emo wangsting I already had were so stilted and contrived it makes me twitch. As for the team seven fics I posted recently -- the ficlet was already done, I changed maybe two words, and the longer one was 2/3 complete and I still spent a few days dragging out ten lines here, five lines there. Where is my ability to sit down and type up pages of stuff? T_T
I want to write smut, but I can't get in the mood. I want to write NaruSasu, and I can't find a plot. I want to write more Possession, and I can't figure out what happens next -- might have written myself into a corner here. Damn it. The only thing it seems I can write is the kind of thing I don't like to read: angsty stream-of-consciousness POVs -- and I don't even have a fic in the works that would need anything like that.
*emos*
ANYWAY. Two things I MIGHT still be able to write are the fic about Sakura's first time, and a series of connected ficlets about the developing connection between Kyuubi and Naruto, both from the Teamwork universe. I might write for them... if I had, you know. IDEAS.
This is where you come in, people.
All of Sakura's First Time (working title, need suggestions) is going up on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reiyel as soon as this is posted, if you need to be reminded what happens -- but basically it's about Sakura on vacation for a month during the summer, with her mom's family, surrounded by utterly normal people. It's about a ninja trying to fit in with civilians who only know rumors and legends about what being a ninja really means. If there are things you want to see, or think I should deal with at some point -- issues or actual scenes, please tell me. (the town isn't big but not a tiny backwater village either, and sometimes she does manage to get along and fit in -- the tone isn't uber angsty or dramatic or anything, mostly day to day life stuff)
As for the ficlets, they're a series of scenes that start just after Naruto brings Sasuke back to Konoha after the Orochimaru thing, and hopefully stop around "The Night". Kyuubi and Naruto didn't start having heart-to-heart chats from one day to the next. I'm also using the ficlets to show the way Naruto's relationships with outside people evolved, and mentioning some events I added to the Teamwork universe's past. Some might need to be developed a little, I can't really tell.
I have a few spots saved, but they're only quick notes for now.
-Naruto dreaming one of Kyuubi's memories -- don't know which, probably one with blood. ideas?
-Naruto gets flaming pissed about something and him and Kyuubi kind of melt together -- need an enemy that would get him mad enough, not Orochimaru (already dead) and not Itachi or Kisame. Kabuto?
--this reminds me, I might need to add a ficlet about Naruto learning about Orochimaru's death. hmmm. that requires me to actually think about how it happens.
-Sort of waking up during sleepwalking, but letting it go on to see what happens? I forget what I wanted to do with this one.
-Another dream, with him having sex with females and then with a male (with biting and dominance issues and stuff, so that he can end up on top of sasuke during training and be all flustered XD)
Same as the previous one: Issues I should adress? Scenes that would be neat to see? Questions you're wondering about that gap between the series and Teamwork proper? Gimme ideas, people. ;_;
For his thirteenth birthday, Naruto gets a concussion.
'... urgh, not any less creepy than last time.' That's not the hospital anymore, is it. Green walls, sickly green light, water sloshing around his ankles -- or something that looks like water. But it's thicker, heavier. Like clear blood -- or like drool. Ew.
Red eyes stare down at him, from so high above it makes him queasy to guess the exact distance -- or maybe it's the nauseatingly malevolent chakra that makes him sick. /What do you want this time?/
'Nothing. Got here by accident.'
/... 'feh./
'Yeah, I'm not especially happy to see you either, furball.'
Flash of teeth in the dark. /You wouldn't be that brave without the cage, brat./
The tone is offending enough that he almost lets the fox provoke him into getting closer. But he's not quite that stupid.
He wakes up to Sakura shaking him awake. Behind them, Kakashi is holding down a glaring, still heavily bandaged up Sasuke in place. So the bastard won't apologize for knocking him out, eh? No problem. Naruto will just get his due the painful way. He forgets about the meeting, and pounces.
+
Sakura's shampoo smells really nice, flowery and sweet like her name. But that scent of blood and life coming from her with each moon is a lot more intriguing. He wishes she wouldn't cover it up with perfume every time she goes and sees Sasuke at the hospital; it isn't as if helping him with his reeducation will leave her smelling anything but sweaty.
Sasuke smells like medicines and drugs; not as much as he should, though. Naruto doesn't say anything. If he was in his place, he'd spit the damn things out too. Besides Sasuke can only handle so many "for your own good" interventions from anyone, and Naruto used pretty much all his credit for the next ten years in one go. So he takes all the snapping and the things thrown at his head and the frozen silences, and he waits. Underneath the drugs and the distress and the hospital food, Sasuke still smells like Sasuke.
Sometimes, rarely, Sasuke smells a little like Sakura, but Naruto doesn't say anything, even though he wishes she would hold him, too. Sasuke needs to get used to human touch again a lot more than he does.
+
Sasuke is thinking of leaving again. Naruto knows he is. Bastard won't talk to anyone anymore. And here Naruto thought that things were getting better, back to normal. Here he thought that the news of Orochimaru's death would put that fear behind them once and for all.
Trust the prissy son of a bitch to go the other way.
Sakura sees the restlessness, too, she watches him with worried eyes -- they're not happy spring green like they were when the bastard left the hospital and was allowed to go on missions with them again. They're dark, like a forest just before a storm, with the animals scared into hiding -- all life hiding away, waiting for the thunder.
He wants her eyes to be full of life again. He wants his eyes to show anything but that horrible emptiness.
He even dreams of it -- alone in a deserted Konoha, calling and screaming and howling. Iruka and Kakashi and Sakura are listless, their eyes unseeing, looking right through him, and Sasuke is leaving and he runs and runs and can't catch up to him, can't actually leave the streets of the town behind. Sasuke disappears in the dark, hunting snakes and beasts that want nothing more than to kill him.
/Herd some big prey closer to home and stop whining,/ Kyuubi growls, annoyed.
Naruto twitches, and wakes up enough to shut the voice off.
It doesn't stop him from asking Kakashi to teach more stuff to Sasuke. More dangerous stuff; no matter what the Council says about what a Genin of dubious allegiance should be allowed to know.
He tries to teach him the Rasengan too. Naruto isn't teacher material and Sasuke chafes at being taught by him -- that and his type of chakra isn't really adapted to Naruto's biggest move. Sasuke can't quite manage it, and it annoys him, but the approximation he gets is more than damaging enough.
Naruto still counts it as a success. So long as he works so hard to master it all, he's not thinking of what kind of prey he could find elsewhere.
+
Naruto is fourteen, and getting an unfortunate response to women wearing pelts. It doesn't help either that Kiba's older sister is a sexy woman, strong and confident and even sort of dangerous. And there's no shirt underneath her Chuunin vest.
Imagining her on all fours while she lectures them on the peculiarities of the beasts Teams seven and eight are tracking in these barren snow fields is one of his guilty pleasures. He draws the line at imagining a bushy tail batting against his thighs, though.
'Keep your fantasies to yourself,' he mutters that night, half-asleep, hand down his pants, and vaguely hears a rumbled, /don't know what you're talking about/ in response.
+
Kakashi-sensei smells shaken, and he forgot to cover his sharingan again; it spins uselessly as he stares through nothing, dazed. That must be the first time he's so openly stunned; Naruto doesn't care enough to bother him about it, though. He feels the same; he can't quite believe it. On the other side of the waiting room, Sakura's parents are waiting, white-faced and shell-shocked. He wonders what's worse, being told that your daughter was just brought in with a badly gouged back and if she doesn't die she might stay paralyzed, or actually seeing it and not being able to stop it.
And his thoughts chase each other like crazy dogs after a fox, around and around and around.
He can't believe she did that.
Kakashi-sensei must have it worse than him; it doesn't look good for a jounin sensei to be protected by his weakest genin.
At least Sasuke completed the mission.
Fuck the mission.
He can't believe she did that. He just. Can't believe. She was safe. She was out of the way. No one paid attention to her. She could have -- Kakashi-sensei would have found a way to dodge; he always dodges everything. Always. He can't die. It was stupid of her. She should have stayed hidden. Saved herself...
She couldn't have completed the mission -- not enough destructive power. And she's so smart, smarter than him, but somehow not enough to know when to run away; he can't manage to be angry for that.
...Yes. He can understand. That doesn't mean he wants to accept it. She's supposed to be safe, they're supposed to keep her safe. Kakashi is right to keep them out of sight, her parents would hate them. And he hates Sasuke for jumping into the opening like that, for using her sacrifice like a distraction.
He tells him; Sasuke sneers. She's a professional. She's doing her job. How stupid is he to let himself get so attached that he'd rather drag her along as useless baggage than see her be useful for once?
They would no doubt get banned from the hospital if Kakashi didn't pull out of his trance long enough to grab them both by the hair, drag them outside and knock their heads together when they try to free themselves. He doesn't say anything; he just stares, eye still spinning.
Sasuke doesn't apologize, but he looks away first. He still smells like Sakura's blood, still has it under his nails.
Naruto slings an arm around his shoulders, and he doesn't pull away, and it says everything that needs to be said.
Kakashi covers his eye again, and goes back inside. His steps are dragging on just a bit, wearily. Naruto and Sasuke stare at nothing a while longer, pretending that they're not leaning against each other, pretending that their world hasn't just trembled on its axis. Sakura isn't supposed to put herself in danger so recklessly. Sakura is the least likely of the four of them to die.
Sakura is a ninja, just as they are. It's the first time that they're forced to accept what it means.
When they go back in, her parents are gone. Kakashi tells them that the couple is inside, visiting.
He stares at them a second longer, then shakes his head and pulls his book outside, slowly, and they understand that she's going to live. The doctors wouldn't have let the Harunos in just yet if they were still operating on her, and if she had died, Kakashi would have read it in the nurse's body language and -- and, no book. No book is a bad thing. Naruto is happy to see that stupid book. So very happy. He's never going to try stealing it and scribble all over the pages again.
He's not allowed to visit her until the next day. He camps in the waiting room anyway. Sasuke stays almost all night, then leaves, sneering. The morning after, Sakura is awake and pale and still pretty, and she's eating an apple that still smells a little like him. Naruto grins.
+
'We gotta stop meeting like this,' he mutters the next time, as he awakens half-floating in front of the cage.
/Lost a fight with your bitch again, brat?/ the fox sneers, and licks a gigantic paw in a not-quite-uncaring way.
Naruto doesn't sneer back, or posture. He finds a relatively dry place and sits down against the wall. 'No. Jiraiya's checking on the seal.' He doesn't like the way he's been sleepwalking. The other night he woke up with his hand in a rat hole, clawing at the hidden rodents frenetically. He got plaster and mortar everywhere. His landlord hates his guts already.
Kyuubi bares his teeth, but doesn't reply.
It's dark and cold and damp in here, and the only light comes from Kyuubi's eyes and the chakra oozing from him. There's a dripping noise coming from somewhere, irregular enough to startle him every time, frequent enough to be a real nuisance. After ten minutes it's already getting on his nerves. Kyuubi is silent like mountains are silent -- just the wind of his breath and the heaviness of his sheer presence and the weight of everything there is between them.
They sit in the dark for a long time, waiting.
At the end he gets to leave. Kyuubi doesn't.
+
He's comfortable, sprawled on soft fur covering warm, squirming bodies. He doesn't care if he's squishing his littermates. They're making him a bumpy nest on which to drape himself. When one of them whines and tries to squirm free, he nips. And then they yelp -- especially since it's hard to say which ear belongs to which sibling, and sometimes he misses and they all start fighting. They tumble against each other until they get tired out and he wins again, and then he sprawls on them and naps and then does it again. It's fun.
He wakes up face down on his bed, upper body on his pillow, legs on the bunched up blankets, the mattress bumpy from piles of clothes he was too tired to put away. His back aches like a son of a bitch, and he's got the headache from hell. The worst, though, is that he's jealous of Kyuubi, because if that wasn't just his subconscious fucking with him, he didn't start life in loneliness.
And the bastard already abused them back then.
He wonders if the fox regrets, now. He wonders if he can even feel regret.
Naruto calls himself a bleeding heart, and tries to forget about it. He needs an aspirin now.
+
The next time he comes by, the fox is howling crazily. Naruto doesn't reply to the taunts and screamed insults. He just -- reaches out for the wall, and pushes, and pushes with all his strength and his crankiness and his rage at being unable to do anything else -- it thuds in his head when the brick falls off on the other side, and there's false wind ruffling his dream hair, and a ray of soft golden light that cuts through the reddish semi-obscurity.
Kyuubi's muzzle is against the bars, just four steps away. He doesn't look at Naruto. He looks at the tiny hole in the wall just outside his cage. His red eyes are half-closed, lids heavy; the wings of his nose are fluttering wildly.
At least he isn't making a racket anymore.
Naruto wakes up with his semi-permanent headache gone, and for a week straight he can smell so many things he needs to camp outside the city walls; the garbage cans are killing him.
+
It's summer and he's lonely.
Sakura left with her parents -- a month without her, and while they've spent longer than that not seeing each other, he still doesn't like knowing that she's so far away. Out of reach. She's not supposed to leave town /his hunting grounds/.
Sasuke is moving out of his old place and into a new flat -- and he doesn't want any help. Naruto isn't that clumsy; he could be plenty helpful. But it's like Sasuke wants Naruto's presence in his new place even less than in his old one. It feels like a negation of their tentative, slowly-healing not-quite-friendship.
Kakashi-sensei's taking quick solo missions. Iruka-sensei's doing the mission assignment gig full-time. Konohamaru is forced into summer lessons by his closet pervert of a teacher, and the guy doesn't want Naruto hanging out with them.
He hangs out with Hinata and Kiba and Shino, when they're in town. He fights with Kiba a lot -- stupid dog always bossing him around. Hinata -- he's aware that she wants him, her scent spikes whenever he goes shirtless and he might be oblivious to visual and behavioral clues, but scent doesn't lie. Kiba is aware too. Kiba is jealous, and they fight even more, but in the end he grudgingly, nobly gives Naruto his wordless benediction. Naruto is tired of the group dynamics. He wants his own group back -- he fits there better. Hinata is nice and pretty and brave when she's not busy stuttering away, but she wears Shino's and Kiba's imprint too deeply -- just like Sasuke and Sakura wear his. Besides, he's not yet ready to let go of his crush on Sakura.
It doesn't stop him from fantasizing about doing both Hinata and Sakura together, but hey, he's a teenager.
The fantasies don't stop the loneliness, but waking up on Iruka-sensei's roof does, because he always invites Naruto in for breakfast.
+
He's angry at Sakura for daring to come back smelling like another male -- not even a ninja. But she smiles, and says how glad she is to be back, and the next day she smells of nothing but soap and shampoo and perfume and tons of flower-scented girly things, all pink, soft skin as if she'd spent the night scrubbing him off her. He's mollified.
He still sulks and (tries to) ignores her and gets into as many fights with Sasuke as he can, just so she doesn't get a chance to latch onto the bastard. He's sure if Sasuke knew, he'd be sulking too... unless he really doesn't care, but Naruto doesn't want to think of that. He wants to keep his certainty that Sasuke does care about them both, and belongs to them both -- that Sakura belongs to them both too -- to him.
He bites Sasuke's shoulder to the blood during a fight, almost deep enough to scar, and somewhere wishes it had been Sakura. Sasuke is already wearing enough of his marks.
+
He's on his first solo mission. Messenger. They wouldn't let him go alone if Jiraiya hadn't given his go-ahead -- Akatsuki is apparently having some sort of internal conflict -- and if Sasuke and Kakashi weren't both out of commission. They double-KOed each other with the sharingan or something. He didn't ask, he was too busy laughing. Kakashi-sensei is still miles ahead of them all and he has his pretty sharingan, but they always forget that Sasuke's got two of them, and he can be pretty vicious when cornered.
Sakura's at the hospital, training under Shizune-neechan. And he really, really shouldn't word it that way. The mental picture is niiiice. Shizune-neechan is kind of plain, and she doesn't dress sexy at all, but when you look closer, she's kind of cute... Not as cute as Sakura-chan, of course. But still.
It's when he notices that he's adding the old hag Tsunade to his sweaty pile of pretties, and yet DOESN'T take his hand out of his pants, that he realizes something's a bit weird with him. But -- fuck. He doesn't care that she's past the breeding age. He can just imagine her ordering her two pretty subordinates around -- though Shizune can be surprisingly bossy with Tsunade... would they fight for the right to initiate Sakura-chan? Would they team up? Would they scratch each other with their long nails and play with each other's hair, each other's breasts?
He could get jumped by the whole Akatsuki group and it wouldn't be enough to get him to stop jerking off. That's just the hottest thing he's ever imagined.
He's a hour late to hand the message over. It's hard to run fast when your legs are still shaking and your dick whimpers a protest every time it brushes against cloth.
On the way back to Konoha, he starts daydreaming about a mudfight between Ino and Sakura.
+
((lacking a few scenes here in the middle so that it's not all about sex all the time))
He's lounging in a sunbeam again. There are several, smaller bodies pressed against his sides. He can hear birds singing, and the grass is lush and green under him, cushioning his little nest. One of them is licking his chest softly, shyly. He watches her, wondering how far she'll take it before losing her nerve. She's a frail little thing. The other ones call her Tsuki; she's as pale and silvery as the moon. He calls her "mine", and that is enough.
He knows that this is one of the other's dreams, but he doesn't care much. It's a nice dream. This is quite the harem; all more beautiful than the next, soft furs ranging from silver to ebony, through cream and falling leaf and soft earth and fire. None of them is less than a Three-tails; five is average. Two of them are full with his kits; another is nursing. They all revere and adore him. They all belong to him. He could do anything to them, should he want them. He could kill the creamy one's kits, and she would only submit as he fills her with his seed again.
He could do anything, and this is why he's gentle when he nuzzles the moonlike one, nibbling on her ear. She rolls over, coyly hiding her small body behind her fluffy tails. She's so weak, so shy, but out of all of his vixens, she's the most faithful. This is why he's almost -- not gentle, but careful -- when he pulls her under him.
Then it dissolves into soft, soft fur and a welcoming body under him, taking without protest everything he gives, silvery tails caressing his sides encouragingly.
For some reason, he wants to call her Hinata. He doesn't see why; that isn't her name. But she seems like a Hinata to him -- which is a stupid reason to rename someone.
He's still on her when two of the other vixens uncoil and start rubbing against his sides, licking his shoulders, his jaws, whining softly. He's thrilled. They all want him -- why should that be a surprise, though? He's ... amused. If they weren't in season, they would never dare to be so bold.
He mounts them all before he's satisfied. In the end it's a mass of fur and muzzles licking here and there, excited yips and little whimpers, tails winding around tails as his teeth clamp down on the back of his chosen vixen's neck. Pleasure, as much from the feel of them as from the knowledge that however much they might nibble each other and rub and wind around each other, he's the only one who can satisfy them. Pleasure from the way they look up at him fearfully, adoringly. He is a Nine-tails. He is their god.
He pulls away from the pile when he's done, abandoning them. He's hungry.
He should care for them. They're his, bearing his progeny.
... But they can hunt on their own. He chose them in part because they were feral huntresses; he has no interest in sickly weaklings, except as food.
Maybe, he compromises with himself, maybe if he's full before it's all gone, he'll share the kill with the two gravid one and the mother.
... Oh shut up. And Hinata -- even if that isn't her name.
++
of course it's when I actually break down and admit that i'm stuck that I start having ideas. rrrgh.
Okay it's been 33 hours with 3 hours of sleep, I go bed bed now. whee.
I want to write smut, but I can't get in the mood. I want to write NaruSasu, and I can't find a plot. I want to write more Possession, and I can't figure out what happens next -- might have written myself into a corner here. Damn it. The only thing it seems I can write is the kind of thing I don't like to read: angsty stream-of-consciousness POVs -- and I don't even have a fic in the works that would need anything like that.
*emos*
ANYWAY. Two things I MIGHT still be able to write are the fic about Sakura's first time, and a series of connected ficlets about the developing connection between Kyuubi and Naruto, both from the Teamwork universe. I might write for them... if I had, you know. IDEAS.
This is where you come in, people.
All of Sakura's First Time (working title, need suggestions) is going up on
reiyel as soon as this is posted, if you need to be reminded what happens -- but basically it's about Sakura on vacation for a month during the summer, with her mom's family, surrounded by utterly normal people. It's about a ninja trying to fit in with civilians who only know rumors and legends about what being a ninja really means. If there are things you want to see, or think I should deal with at some point -- issues or actual scenes, please tell me. (the town isn't big but not a tiny backwater village either, and sometimes she does manage to get along and fit in -- the tone isn't uber angsty or dramatic or anything, mostly day to day life stuff)As for the ficlets, they're a series of scenes that start just after Naruto brings Sasuke back to Konoha after the Orochimaru thing, and hopefully stop around "The Night". Kyuubi and Naruto didn't start having heart-to-heart chats from one day to the next. I'm also using the ficlets to show the way Naruto's relationships with outside people evolved, and mentioning some events I added to the Teamwork universe's past. Some might need to be developed a little, I can't really tell.
I have a few spots saved, but they're only quick notes for now.
-Naruto dreaming one of Kyuubi's memories -- don't know which, probably one with blood. ideas?
-Naruto gets flaming pissed about something and him and Kyuubi kind of melt together -- need an enemy that would get him mad enough, not Orochimaru (already dead) and not Itachi or Kisame. Kabuto?
--this reminds me, I might need to add a ficlet about Naruto learning about Orochimaru's death. hmmm. that requires me to actually think about how it happens.
-Sort of waking up during sleepwalking, but letting it go on to see what happens? I forget what I wanted to do with this one.
-Another dream, with him having sex with females and then with a male (with biting and dominance issues and stuff, so that he can end up on top of sasuke during training and be all flustered XD)
Same as the previous one: Issues I should adress? Scenes that would be neat to see? Questions you're wondering about that gap between the series and Teamwork proper? Gimme ideas, people. ;_;
For his thirteenth birthday, Naruto gets a concussion.
'... urgh, not any less creepy than last time.' That's not the hospital anymore, is it. Green walls, sickly green light, water sloshing around his ankles -- or something that looks like water. But it's thicker, heavier. Like clear blood -- or like drool. Ew.
Red eyes stare down at him, from so high above it makes him queasy to guess the exact distance -- or maybe it's the nauseatingly malevolent chakra that makes him sick. /What do you want this time?/
'Nothing. Got here by accident.'
/... 'feh./
'Yeah, I'm not especially happy to see you either, furball.'
Flash of teeth in the dark. /You wouldn't be that brave without the cage, brat./
The tone is offending enough that he almost lets the fox provoke him into getting closer. But he's not quite that stupid.
He wakes up to Sakura shaking him awake. Behind them, Kakashi is holding down a glaring, still heavily bandaged up Sasuke in place. So the bastard won't apologize for knocking him out, eh? No problem. Naruto will just get his due the painful way. He forgets about the meeting, and pounces.
+
Sakura's shampoo smells really nice, flowery and sweet like her name. But that scent of blood and life coming from her with each moon is a lot more intriguing. He wishes she wouldn't cover it up with perfume every time she goes and sees Sasuke at the hospital; it isn't as if helping him with his reeducation will leave her smelling anything but sweaty.
Sasuke smells like medicines and drugs; not as much as he should, though. Naruto doesn't say anything. If he was in his place, he'd spit the damn things out too. Besides Sasuke can only handle so many "for your own good" interventions from anyone, and Naruto used pretty much all his credit for the next ten years in one go. So he takes all the snapping and the things thrown at his head and the frozen silences, and he waits. Underneath the drugs and the distress and the hospital food, Sasuke still smells like Sasuke.
Sometimes, rarely, Sasuke smells a little like Sakura, but Naruto doesn't say anything, even though he wishes she would hold him, too. Sasuke needs to get used to human touch again a lot more than he does.
+
Sasuke is thinking of leaving again. Naruto knows he is. Bastard won't talk to anyone anymore. And here Naruto thought that things were getting better, back to normal. Here he thought that the news of Orochimaru's death would put that fear behind them once and for all.
Trust the prissy son of a bitch to go the other way.
Sakura sees the restlessness, too, she watches him with worried eyes -- they're not happy spring green like they were when the bastard left the hospital and was allowed to go on missions with them again. They're dark, like a forest just before a storm, with the animals scared into hiding -- all life hiding away, waiting for the thunder.
He wants her eyes to be full of life again. He wants his eyes to show anything but that horrible emptiness.
He even dreams of it -- alone in a deserted Konoha, calling and screaming and howling. Iruka and Kakashi and Sakura are listless, their eyes unseeing, looking right through him, and Sasuke is leaving and he runs and runs and can't catch up to him, can't actually leave the streets of the town behind. Sasuke disappears in the dark, hunting snakes and beasts that want nothing more than to kill him.
/Herd some big prey closer to home and stop whining,/ Kyuubi growls, annoyed.
Naruto twitches, and wakes up enough to shut the voice off.
It doesn't stop him from asking Kakashi to teach more stuff to Sasuke. More dangerous stuff; no matter what the Council says about what a Genin of dubious allegiance should be allowed to know.
He tries to teach him the Rasengan too. Naruto isn't teacher material and Sasuke chafes at being taught by him -- that and his type of chakra isn't really adapted to Naruto's biggest move. Sasuke can't quite manage it, and it annoys him, but the approximation he gets is more than damaging enough.
Naruto still counts it as a success. So long as he works so hard to master it all, he's not thinking of what kind of prey he could find elsewhere.
+
Naruto is fourteen, and getting an unfortunate response to women wearing pelts. It doesn't help either that Kiba's older sister is a sexy woman, strong and confident and even sort of dangerous. And there's no shirt underneath her Chuunin vest.
Imagining her on all fours while she lectures them on the peculiarities of the beasts Teams seven and eight are tracking in these barren snow fields is one of his guilty pleasures. He draws the line at imagining a bushy tail batting against his thighs, though.
'Keep your fantasies to yourself,' he mutters that night, half-asleep, hand down his pants, and vaguely hears a rumbled, /don't know what you're talking about/ in response.
+
Kakashi-sensei smells shaken, and he forgot to cover his sharingan again; it spins uselessly as he stares through nothing, dazed. That must be the first time he's so openly stunned; Naruto doesn't care enough to bother him about it, though. He feels the same; he can't quite believe it. On the other side of the waiting room, Sakura's parents are waiting, white-faced and shell-shocked. He wonders what's worse, being told that your daughter was just brought in with a badly gouged back and if she doesn't die she might stay paralyzed, or actually seeing it and not being able to stop it.
And his thoughts chase each other like crazy dogs after a fox, around and around and around.
He can't believe she did that.
Kakashi-sensei must have it worse than him; it doesn't look good for a jounin sensei to be protected by his weakest genin.
At least Sasuke completed the mission.
Fuck the mission.
He can't believe she did that. He just. Can't believe. She was safe. She was out of the way. No one paid attention to her. She could have -- Kakashi-sensei would have found a way to dodge; he always dodges everything. Always. He can't die. It was stupid of her. She should have stayed hidden. Saved herself...
She couldn't have completed the mission -- not enough destructive power. And she's so smart, smarter than him, but somehow not enough to know when to run away; he can't manage to be angry for that.
...Yes. He can understand. That doesn't mean he wants to accept it. She's supposed to be safe, they're supposed to keep her safe. Kakashi is right to keep them out of sight, her parents would hate them. And he hates Sasuke for jumping into the opening like that, for using her sacrifice like a distraction.
He tells him; Sasuke sneers. She's a professional. She's doing her job. How stupid is he to let himself get so attached that he'd rather drag her along as useless baggage than see her be useful for once?
They would no doubt get banned from the hospital if Kakashi didn't pull out of his trance long enough to grab them both by the hair, drag them outside and knock their heads together when they try to free themselves. He doesn't say anything; he just stares, eye still spinning.
Sasuke doesn't apologize, but he looks away first. He still smells like Sakura's blood, still has it under his nails.
Naruto slings an arm around his shoulders, and he doesn't pull away, and it says everything that needs to be said.
Kakashi covers his eye again, and goes back inside. His steps are dragging on just a bit, wearily. Naruto and Sasuke stare at nothing a while longer, pretending that they're not leaning against each other, pretending that their world hasn't just trembled on its axis. Sakura isn't supposed to put herself in danger so recklessly. Sakura is the least likely of the four of them to die.
Sakura is a ninja, just as they are. It's the first time that they're forced to accept what it means.
When they go back in, her parents are gone. Kakashi tells them that the couple is inside, visiting.
He stares at them a second longer, then shakes his head and pulls his book outside, slowly, and they understand that she's going to live. The doctors wouldn't have let the Harunos in just yet if they were still operating on her, and if she had died, Kakashi would have read it in the nurse's body language and -- and, no book. No book is a bad thing. Naruto is happy to see that stupid book. So very happy. He's never going to try stealing it and scribble all over the pages again.
He's not allowed to visit her until the next day. He camps in the waiting room anyway. Sasuke stays almost all night, then leaves, sneering. The morning after, Sakura is awake and pale and still pretty, and she's eating an apple that still smells a little like him. Naruto grins.
+
'We gotta stop meeting like this,' he mutters the next time, as he awakens half-floating in front of the cage.
/Lost a fight with your bitch again, brat?/ the fox sneers, and licks a gigantic paw in a not-quite-uncaring way.
Naruto doesn't sneer back, or posture. He finds a relatively dry place and sits down against the wall. 'No. Jiraiya's checking on the seal.' He doesn't like the way he's been sleepwalking. The other night he woke up with his hand in a rat hole, clawing at the hidden rodents frenetically. He got plaster and mortar everywhere. His landlord hates his guts already.
Kyuubi bares his teeth, but doesn't reply.
It's dark and cold and damp in here, and the only light comes from Kyuubi's eyes and the chakra oozing from him. There's a dripping noise coming from somewhere, irregular enough to startle him every time, frequent enough to be a real nuisance. After ten minutes it's already getting on his nerves. Kyuubi is silent like mountains are silent -- just the wind of his breath and the heaviness of his sheer presence and the weight of everything there is between them.
They sit in the dark for a long time, waiting.
At the end he gets to leave. Kyuubi doesn't.
+
He's comfortable, sprawled on soft fur covering warm, squirming bodies. He doesn't care if he's squishing his littermates. They're making him a bumpy nest on which to drape himself. When one of them whines and tries to squirm free, he nips. And then they yelp -- especially since it's hard to say which ear belongs to which sibling, and sometimes he misses and they all start fighting. They tumble against each other until they get tired out and he wins again, and then he sprawls on them and naps and then does it again. It's fun.
He wakes up face down on his bed, upper body on his pillow, legs on the bunched up blankets, the mattress bumpy from piles of clothes he was too tired to put away. His back aches like a son of a bitch, and he's got the headache from hell. The worst, though, is that he's jealous of Kyuubi, because if that wasn't just his subconscious fucking with him, he didn't start life in loneliness.
And the bastard already abused them back then.
He wonders if the fox regrets, now. He wonders if he can even feel regret.
Naruto calls himself a bleeding heart, and tries to forget about it. He needs an aspirin now.
+
The next time he comes by, the fox is howling crazily. Naruto doesn't reply to the taunts and screamed insults. He just -- reaches out for the wall, and pushes, and pushes with all his strength and his crankiness and his rage at being unable to do anything else -- it thuds in his head when the brick falls off on the other side, and there's false wind ruffling his dream hair, and a ray of soft golden light that cuts through the reddish semi-obscurity.
Kyuubi's muzzle is against the bars, just four steps away. He doesn't look at Naruto. He looks at the tiny hole in the wall just outside his cage. His red eyes are half-closed, lids heavy; the wings of his nose are fluttering wildly.
At least he isn't making a racket anymore.
Naruto wakes up with his semi-permanent headache gone, and for a week straight he can smell so many things he needs to camp outside the city walls; the garbage cans are killing him.
+
It's summer and he's lonely.
Sakura left with her parents -- a month without her, and while they've spent longer than that not seeing each other, he still doesn't like knowing that she's so far away. Out of reach. She's not supposed to leave town /his hunting grounds/.
Sasuke is moving out of his old place and into a new flat -- and he doesn't want any help. Naruto isn't that clumsy; he could be plenty helpful. But it's like Sasuke wants Naruto's presence in his new place even less than in his old one. It feels like a negation of their tentative, slowly-healing not-quite-friendship.
Kakashi-sensei's taking quick solo missions. Iruka-sensei's doing the mission assignment gig full-time. Konohamaru is forced into summer lessons by his closet pervert of a teacher, and the guy doesn't want Naruto hanging out with them.
He hangs out with Hinata and Kiba and Shino, when they're in town. He fights with Kiba a lot -- stupid dog always bossing him around. Hinata -- he's aware that she wants him, her scent spikes whenever he goes shirtless and he might be oblivious to visual and behavioral clues, but scent doesn't lie. Kiba is aware too. Kiba is jealous, and they fight even more, but in the end he grudgingly, nobly gives Naruto his wordless benediction. Naruto is tired of the group dynamics. He wants his own group back -- he fits there better. Hinata is nice and pretty and brave when she's not busy stuttering away, but she wears Shino's and Kiba's imprint too deeply -- just like Sasuke and Sakura wear his. Besides, he's not yet ready to let go of his crush on Sakura.
It doesn't stop him from fantasizing about doing both Hinata and Sakura together, but hey, he's a teenager.
The fantasies don't stop the loneliness, but waking up on Iruka-sensei's roof does, because he always invites Naruto in for breakfast.
+
He's angry at Sakura for daring to come back smelling like another male -- not even a ninja. But she smiles, and says how glad she is to be back, and the next day she smells of nothing but soap and shampoo and perfume and tons of flower-scented girly things, all pink, soft skin as if she'd spent the night scrubbing him off her. He's mollified.
He still sulks and (tries to) ignores her and gets into as many fights with Sasuke as he can, just so she doesn't get a chance to latch onto the bastard. He's sure if Sasuke knew, he'd be sulking too... unless he really doesn't care, but Naruto doesn't want to think of that. He wants to keep his certainty that Sasuke does care about them both, and belongs to them both -- that Sakura belongs to them both too -- to him.
He bites Sasuke's shoulder to the blood during a fight, almost deep enough to scar, and somewhere wishes it had been Sakura. Sasuke is already wearing enough of his marks.
+
He's on his first solo mission. Messenger. They wouldn't let him go alone if Jiraiya hadn't given his go-ahead -- Akatsuki is apparently having some sort of internal conflict -- and if Sasuke and Kakashi weren't both out of commission. They double-KOed each other with the sharingan or something. He didn't ask, he was too busy laughing. Kakashi-sensei is still miles ahead of them all and he has his pretty sharingan, but they always forget that Sasuke's got two of them, and he can be pretty vicious when cornered.
Sakura's at the hospital, training under Shizune-neechan. And he really, really shouldn't word it that way. The mental picture is niiiice. Shizune-neechan is kind of plain, and she doesn't dress sexy at all, but when you look closer, she's kind of cute... Not as cute as Sakura-chan, of course. But still.
It's when he notices that he's adding the old hag Tsunade to his sweaty pile of pretties, and yet DOESN'T take his hand out of his pants, that he realizes something's a bit weird with him. But -- fuck. He doesn't care that she's past the breeding age. He can just imagine her ordering her two pretty subordinates around -- though Shizune can be surprisingly bossy with Tsunade... would they fight for the right to initiate Sakura-chan? Would they team up? Would they scratch each other with their long nails and play with each other's hair, each other's breasts?
He could get jumped by the whole Akatsuki group and it wouldn't be enough to get him to stop jerking off. That's just the hottest thing he's ever imagined.
He's a hour late to hand the message over. It's hard to run fast when your legs are still shaking and your dick whimpers a protest every time it brushes against cloth.
On the way back to Konoha, he starts daydreaming about a mudfight between Ino and Sakura.
+
((lacking a few scenes here in the middle so that it's not all about sex all the time))
He's lounging in a sunbeam again. There are several, smaller bodies pressed against his sides. He can hear birds singing, and the grass is lush and green under him, cushioning his little nest. One of them is licking his chest softly, shyly. He watches her, wondering how far she'll take it before losing her nerve. She's a frail little thing. The other ones call her Tsuki; she's as pale and silvery as the moon. He calls her "mine", and that is enough.
He knows that this is one of the other's dreams, but he doesn't care much. It's a nice dream. This is quite the harem; all more beautiful than the next, soft furs ranging from silver to ebony, through cream and falling leaf and soft earth and fire. None of them is less than a Three-tails; five is average. Two of them are full with his kits; another is nursing. They all revere and adore him. They all belong to him. He could do anything to them, should he want them. He could kill the creamy one's kits, and she would only submit as he fills her with his seed again.
He could do anything, and this is why he's gentle when he nuzzles the moonlike one, nibbling on her ear. She rolls over, coyly hiding her small body behind her fluffy tails. She's so weak, so shy, but out of all of his vixens, she's the most faithful. This is why he's almost -- not gentle, but careful -- when he pulls her under him.
Then it dissolves into soft, soft fur and a welcoming body under him, taking without protest everything he gives, silvery tails caressing his sides encouragingly.
For some reason, he wants to call her Hinata. He doesn't see why; that isn't her name. But she seems like a Hinata to him -- which is a stupid reason to rename someone.
He's still on her when two of the other vixens uncoil and start rubbing against his sides, licking his shoulders, his jaws, whining softly. He's thrilled. They all want him -- why should that be a surprise, though? He's ... amused. If they weren't in season, they would never dare to be so bold.
He mounts them all before he's satisfied. In the end it's a mass of fur and muzzles licking here and there, excited yips and little whimpers, tails winding around tails as his teeth clamp down on the back of his chosen vixen's neck. Pleasure, as much from the feel of them as from the knowledge that however much they might nibble each other and rub and wind around each other, he's the only one who can satisfy them. Pleasure from the way they look up at him fearfully, adoringly. He is a Nine-tails. He is their god.
He pulls away from the pile when he's done, abandoning them. He's hungry.
He should care for them. They're his, bearing his progeny.
... But they can hunt on their own. He chose them in part because they were feral huntresses; he has no interest in sickly weaklings, except as food.
Maybe, he compromises with himself, maybe if he's full before it's all gone, he'll share the kill with the two gravid one and the mother.
... Oh shut up. And Hinata -- even if that isn't her name.
++
of course it's when I actually break down and admit that i'm stuck that I start having ideas. rrrgh.
Okay it's been 33 hours with 3 hours of sleep, I go bed bed now. whee.