[Fic] hear it for the boy
Apr. 18th, 2011 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
suchacharmerhear it for the boy: On the afternoon of her sixteenth birthday, Naruto brings her a bottle of wine.
Category: One-shot
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for language and drug/alcohol references.
Pairing: NaruSaku, of sorts
Notes: A long time ago, I posted an entry for fic prompts. This is one of those prompts, left bynotavodkashot: There's a glass of wine, half empty; there's a glass of sorrows, half full. Tell me, my dear, who broke your heart?” The full poem is over here at her journal.
All characters belong to Kishimoto.
On the afternoon of her sixteenth birthday, Naruto brings her a bottle of wine. He holds it out to her with his customary ear to ear grin full of promises and says, “happy birthday sweetie. I brought us something to get you drunk on.”
Sakura shakes her head and invites him inside by taking the proffered bottle. They’re way past the point of formalities. That bridge was crossed the first night she let him crawl in through her window and into bed with her, when he could stand the replacement parents for another second. In after midnight, out before sunrise. He kicks in his sleep.
“California Chablis,” she reads off the label as Naruto slides past her into the kitchen and lets the screen door bang shut behind him.. “An exquisite moment of bliss for the sophisticated palate.” She wrinkles her nose. “What is this, the cheapest wine you could find?”
“Hey,” Naruto protests. “I paid good money for that wine.”
Sakura fingers the pink ribbon tied around the neck of the bottle. The edges are frayed, just like the bottoms of Naruto’s jeans. It's a nice touch. “You bought this at the gas-n-go behind the Chevy lot.”
“Well, yeah. But see, the thing is.” He throws himself into the chair with the good leg, which is really her dad’s chair although she tends to think of it as Naruto’s. It’s the only chair that stands up to his precarious sitting habits. Sakura leans her hip against the table, ready for a story. “See, I had to bribe a guy to do it for me. And he wanted ten bucks out of it, make it worth his while, you know. Thing was, of course, I only had a ten on me.”
“Of course,” Sakura agrees amicably. Naruto always tells stories, but they get better when you play along. Make me feel wanted, that’s what he tells you if you’re listening for the first time. Sakura’s known the kid since they were eight, and even though she knows it’s a fifty-fifty shot in the dark, she’ll act like it’s the first time over and over again. You always remember your first time better anyway.
“Only natural. I had to find a remedy to the situation, then.”
“Yeah. What’d you do?”
“Ahh,” Naruto says, and Sakura knows she’s stumbled across the catch. He tips back in the chair until only the two back legs are on the ground. He balances there like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “You sure you wanna know? It’s not a tale for the sophisticated palate, ya know.”
Sakura’s never sure she wants to know when it comes to Naruto. Most vividly, she remembers the time his story involved a pair of Ino’s underwear and thirty dollars. Blue ones with white polka dots. But there’s always a parts of her that’s sure she’s going to miss out if she doesn’t keep him going, and that’s what keeps her going. “Guess the wine’s going to have to go back, then.”
Naruto’s grin changes to just that right one, the one where she’s said the right thing and boy, she’d better get ready now. “Fuck no. Not after I've gone and done it’s not going back.”
“Yeah? You thinking of impressing me?”
Grin. “I might.”
“Well fuck, Naruto.” The ribbon is a contradictory sensation under her fingertips, a little smooth, a little rough. You going to tell me or do I have to guess?”
Naruto plays the innocent and starts whistling Johnny Angel. Sakura knows he’s anything but. She also knows that he got that song from foster family number two, who played the oldies on the radio twenty-four/seven. He liked them. He didn’t crawl in through her window back then.
“Hmm. Alright, alright. Let me think.” She folds her arms across her stomach. “Am I supposed to think really dirty or just plain old regular dirty?”
Naruto’s hand closes into a fist and stabs his heart in a mock wound, and goddamn, she’s sure he’s going to tip backwards this time. But he doesn’t. He’s a miracle like that. “That hurts me, Sakura. Deeply, deeply hurts me.”
“You’re full of it,” she retorts, and he laughs, so yeah, really dirty then. “Okay.” She switches positions so that the base of her spine is pressed against the edge of the table and she has to look over her shoulder to see him. “What’s it have to do with? Sex? Drugs? Rock and roll?”
Naruto waggles his eyebrows.
“All three?”
“Hah. My reputation precedes me.”
Naruto’s reputation does precede him. He’s the little boy who cried wolf. Maybe the story is true, maybe it isn’t, maybe it will be next time. You don’t much care, when he’s telling it.
“You didn’t rob a guy, did you?”
“Hell no.” He lets the chair fall forward onto all fours, elbows on the table with his hands pressed into a church steeple. “Naw, I did him a favor.” He licks his lips and leans forward, like there’s someone there who might overhear. It’s bull, because he’ll tell this to someone else later, but she plays along and mirrors his pose, bent over at the waist. “The best kind of favor.”
Sakura takes a quick breath in and out. It ghosts over the steeple. “What kind’s that?”
Naruto leans closer, and it’s a real conspiracy. “The kind you usually have to pay for.” Sakura stays silent, eyebrows raised and expectant, and that’s all the encouragement he needs. “You know that dead end alley behind the gas n’ go? With the cinder block wall and the chain link fence?” She knows. She’d taken a hit back there, which was stupid thing to do, but she’d been fourteen and Naruto was persuasive. He grins that exact same grin he walked in with, keeping it as he speaks. “Had his fingers laced through the fence by the end. Knuckles turned white. Would have said my name if he’d known it, bet you anything. ‘Stead he just said oh fuck over and over again, you know, all breathy and low.”
“Mhmm,” she agrees, unable to say anything more than that. This is what happens when Naruto tells a story, the part you can’t forget.
“Guys sound different than girls, you know? They say we don’t get breathless, but that’s not true. It’s just that it’s getting pulled out of you, dragged out of you because you’re not supposed to like it the way you do. Like,” and here Naruto makes a noise, a small one, but yeah, it sounds just like that. “With girls, it’s higher, all over the place like.”
And here Naruto make another noise, small and high and ridiculous and Sakura cracks up laughing. Naruto joins her, the steeple collapsing as he buries his face in his arms. “What the hell was that?” she chokes out through laughter. “Sounded like a. Fuck I don’t even know.”
“What?” he says, looking up at her with his chin nestled in his arms and failing to sound anything close to serious. “You don’t sound like that?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she gets out as she concentrates on breathing. Breathing through laughter is like breathing through pain; it only works if you’re dedicated to getting it out of your system.
“Well that’s just a shame,” Naruto concludes sagely. “You ought to let loose. We alllllll,” he emphasizes with a wide sweep of his arms, indicating the imaginary audience behind them. Naruto the circus attraction, balancing on one leg of his chair. The ring leader. “Oughtta let loose.”
Sakura feels like he should take a bow.
Instead she says. “Debauchery is for the nighttime, baby doll.” She picked up the period slang from Naruto himself, who went through a black and white movie phase like he was going through withdraw; he smiles like it’s the best think ever.
She takes the bottle of California Chablis by the neck, swirls it around in tight concentric circles. “Settle for a drink?”
“At one in the afternoon?” Naruto takes a moment to pretend at pondering, debating the merits at getting drunk off of cheap wine before five o’clock. They’re few and far between, Sakura thinks, but her parents won’t be back until later tonight, and besides, they don’t think she’ll do it. They never do.
Naruto, though, he knows she will, if his delighted grin is any indication.
Sakura pops the stopper easily, dropping it carelessly on the tabletop. They want you to get at the cheap stuff. Wine glasses would make her feel a little more classy, but then she’s have to wash them before her parents get home and she doesn’t want to have to go through the trouble. She goes for the red plastic cups instead, the ones they use when they eat outside on sweltering summer days, gives one to Naruto and keeps one for herself.
“Wanna make a toast?” Naruto asks as Sakura fills her cup almost to the brim and then passes the bottle to Naruto. He does the same.
“To what?”
They raise their glasses together, Naruto’s legs back on the ground and Sakura’s ass back on the table. He has one finger in the wine, just breaking the surface. The look on his face says he’s thinking about it, but the glint in his eyes says he already has the words.
Sakura beats him to it by calculated milliseconds. “To wine for only $3.99.”
Naruto smiles slowly, adding his own addendum. “I love it when you call me baby, doll.”
The look that’s in his eyes sometimes as they fall asleep with all their clothes between them is there as red plastic taps red plastic, liquid sloshing over the sides.
Category: One-shot
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for language and drug/alcohol references.
Pairing: NaruSaku, of sorts
Notes: A long time ago, I posted an entry for fic prompts. This is one of those prompts, left by
notavodkashot: There's a glass of wine, half empty; there's a glass of sorrows, half full. Tell me, my dear, who broke your heart?” The full poem is over here at her journal.All characters belong to Kishimoto.
On the afternoon of her sixteenth birthday, Naruto brings her a bottle of wine. He holds it out to her with his customary ear to ear grin full of promises and says, “happy birthday sweetie. I brought us something to get you drunk on.”
Sakura shakes her head and invites him inside by taking the proffered bottle. They’re way past the point of formalities. That bridge was crossed the first night she let him crawl in through her window and into bed with her, when he could stand the replacement parents for another second. In after midnight, out before sunrise. He kicks in his sleep.
“California Chablis,” she reads off the label as Naruto slides past her into the kitchen and lets the screen door bang shut behind him.. “An exquisite moment of bliss for the sophisticated palate.” She wrinkles her nose. “What is this, the cheapest wine you could find?”
“Hey,” Naruto protests. “I paid good money for that wine.”
Sakura fingers the pink ribbon tied around the neck of the bottle. The edges are frayed, just like the bottoms of Naruto’s jeans. It's a nice touch. “You bought this at the gas-n-go behind the Chevy lot.”
“Well, yeah. But see, the thing is.” He throws himself into the chair with the good leg, which is really her dad’s chair although she tends to think of it as Naruto’s. It’s the only chair that stands up to his precarious sitting habits. Sakura leans her hip against the table, ready for a story. “See, I had to bribe a guy to do it for me. And he wanted ten bucks out of it, make it worth his while, you know. Thing was, of course, I only had a ten on me.”
“Of course,” Sakura agrees amicably. Naruto always tells stories, but they get better when you play along. Make me feel wanted, that’s what he tells you if you’re listening for the first time. Sakura’s known the kid since they were eight, and even though she knows it’s a fifty-fifty shot in the dark, she’ll act like it’s the first time over and over again. You always remember your first time better anyway.
“Only natural. I had to find a remedy to the situation, then.”
“Yeah. What’d you do?”
“Ahh,” Naruto says, and Sakura knows she’s stumbled across the catch. He tips back in the chair until only the two back legs are on the ground. He balances there like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “You sure you wanna know? It’s not a tale for the sophisticated palate, ya know.”
Sakura’s never sure she wants to know when it comes to Naruto. Most vividly, she remembers the time his story involved a pair of Ino’s underwear and thirty dollars. Blue ones with white polka dots. But there’s always a parts of her that’s sure she’s going to miss out if she doesn’t keep him going, and that’s what keeps her going. “Guess the wine’s going to have to go back, then.”
Naruto’s grin changes to just that right one, the one where she’s said the right thing and boy, she’d better get ready now. “Fuck no. Not after I've gone and done it’s not going back.”
“Yeah? You thinking of impressing me?”
Grin. “I might.”
“Well fuck, Naruto.” The ribbon is a contradictory sensation under her fingertips, a little smooth, a little rough. You going to tell me or do I have to guess?”
Naruto plays the innocent and starts whistling Johnny Angel. Sakura knows he’s anything but. She also knows that he got that song from foster family number two, who played the oldies on the radio twenty-four/seven. He liked them. He didn’t crawl in through her window back then.
“Hmm. Alright, alright. Let me think.” She folds her arms across her stomach. “Am I supposed to think really dirty or just plain old regular dirty?”
Naruto’s hand closes into a fist and stabs his heart in a mock wound, and goddamn, she’s sure he’s going to tip backwards this time. But he doesn’t. He’s a miracle like that. “That hurts me, Sakura. Deeply, deeply hurts me.”
“You’re full of it,” she retorts, and he laughs, so yeah, really dirty then. “Okay.” She switches positions so that the base of her spine is pressed against the edge of the table and she has to look over her shoulder to see him. “What’s it have to do with? Sex? Drugs? Rock and roll?”
Naruto waggles his eyebrows.
“All three?”
“Hah. My reputation precedes me.”
Naruto’s reputation does precede him. He’s the little boy who cried wolf. Maybe the story is true, maybe it isn’t, maybe it will be next time. You don’t much care, when he’s telling it.
“You didn’t rob a guy, did you?”
“Hell no.” He lets the chair fall forward onto all fours, elbows on the table with his hands pressed into a church steeple. “Naw, I did him a favor.” He licks his lips and leans forward, like there’s someone there who might overhear. It’s bull, because he’ll tell this to someone else later, but she plays along and mirrors his pose, bent over at the waist. “The best kind of favor.”
Sakura takes a quick breath in and out. It ghosts over the steeple. “What kind’s that?”
Naruto leans closer, and it’s a real conspiracy. “The kind you usually have to pay for.” Sakura stays silent, eyebrows raised and expectant, and that’s all the encouragement he needs. “You know that dead end alley behind the gas n’ go? With the cinder block wall and the chain link fence?” She knows. She’d taken a hit back there, which was stupid thing to do, but she’d been fourteen and Naruto was persuasive. He grins that exact same grin he walked in with, keeping it as he speaks. “Had his fingers laced through the fence by the end. Knuckles turned white. Would have said my name if he’d known it, bet you anything. ‘Stead he just said oh fuck over and over again, you know, all breathy and low.”
“Mhmm,” she agrees, unable to say anything more than that. This is what happens when Naruto tells a story, the part you can’t forget.
“Guys sound different than girls, you know? They say we don’t get breathless, but that’s not true. It’s just that it’s getting pulled out of you, dragged out of you because you’re not supposed to like it the way you do. Like,” and here Naruto makes a noise, a small one, but yeah, it sounds just like that. “With girls, it’s higher, all over the place like.”
And here Naruto make another noise, small and high and ridiculous and Sakura cracks up laughing. Naruto joins her, the steeple collapsing as he buries his face in his arms. “What the hell was that?” she chokes out through laughter. “Sounded like a. Fuck I don’t even know.”
“What?” he says, looking up at her with his chin nestled in his arms and failing to sound anything close to serious. “You don’t sound like that?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she gets out as she concentrates on breathing. Breathing through laughter is like breathing through pain; it only works if you’re dedicated to getting it out of your system.
“Well that’s just a shame,” Naruto concludes sagely. “You ought to let loose. We alllllll,” he emphasizes with a wide sweep of his arms, indicating the imaginary audience behind them. Naruto the circus attraction, balancing on one leg of his chair. The ring leader. “Oughtta let loose.”
Sakura feels like he should take a bow.
Instead she says. “Debauchery is for the nighttime, baby doll.” She picked up the period slang from Naruto himself, who went through a black and white movie phase like he was going through withdraw; he smiles like it’s the best think ever.
She takes the bottle of California Chablis by the neck, swirls it around in tight concentric circles. “Settle for a drink?”
“At one in the afternoon?” Naruto takes a moment to pretend at pondering, debating the merits at getting drunk off of cheap wine before five o’clock. They’re few and far between, Sakura thinks, but her parents won’t be back until later tonight, and besides, they don’t think she’ll do it. They never do.
Naruto, though, he knows she will, if his delighted grin is any indication.
Sakura pops the stopper easily, dropping it carelessly on the tabletop. They want you to get at the cheap stuff. Wine glasses would make her feel a little more classy, but then she’s have to wash them before her parents get home and she doesn’t want to have to go through the trouble. She goes for the red plastic cups instead, the ones they use when they eat outside on sweltering summer days, gives one to Naruto and keeps one for herself.
“Wanna make a toast?” Naruto asks as Sakura fills her cup almost to the brim and then passes the bottle to Naruto. He does the same.
“To what?”
They raise their glasses together, Naruto’s legs back on the ground and Sakura’s ass back on the table. He has one finger in the wine, just breaking the surface. The look on his face says he’s thinking about it, but the glint in his eyes says he already has the words.
Sakura beats him to it by calculated milliseconds. “To wine for only $3.99.”
Naruto smiles slowly, adding his own addendum. “I love it when you call me baby, doll.”
The look that’s in his eyes sometimes as they fall asleep with all their clothes between them is there as red plastic taps red plastic, liquid sloshing over the sides.
