Chapter Text
Sasuke is back to what people still refer to as the Ember Grounds after six years. He doesn’t know where the monicker for the ancestral house comes from nor does he want to know. The estate doesn’t particularly bear most of the brunt of the sunlight, not when it’s located in the heart of a forest, covered and insulated by thick canopies of century old trees. There’s a clearing however when one cuts across the hunting grounds, and even then, the journey into the fork leads to a cliffside, the raging seas revolting against the jagged rocks. He couldn’t quite remember a time when they’re at peace, calm enough for the clan to go down the carved staircase on the cliff and walk along the rugged shore to have some sprinkle of summer.
He almost rides the nostalgic wave as his feet lead him through familiar corridors, shoes almost hugging the depression on the carpet, when a flash of pink sprints in front of him. A bright color as that never goes unignored in this gray splashed mansion. It’s stupid but he sets off in a run to catch the gust of rose wind, spring moving past the clasp of winter.
It leads him to the great hall, the wide space on the foot of the stairs where dances have traipsed into cacophonies and where conversations (and secrets) floated across pedestal tables crowded with champagne flutes, hors d’oeuvres, and floral centerpieces plucked directly from the expansive garden cultivated under the meticulous supervision of Madara’s green thumbs.
The great hall emptied out when Sasuke moved abroad after college. He was, after all, the last of the Uchihas to stay while others have sought lesser pretentious homes. With no one to use the space, the marble columns reclaimed their air of intimidation and shrunk everyone in size. The house isn’t particularly a vessel for damning memories or trauma. It just feels impersonal, and it raised very impersonal people as well. So much for being called Ember Grounds. In great honesty, he thinks the house has reached its wasting years.
And from the moment he got the message to the present where he now joins a gathering audience on the foot of the stairs, he denies he is wrong.
Because why would his brother marry his ex-girlfriend, Haruno Sakura in this barren house and allow it to combust to life?
The devil stands on top of the landing with perfectly curled pink hair, the same muted color on her lips, and green eyes all knowing of the pain that’s sinking in him. She is snug and comfortable in purple plaid coordinates that hug all the right curves and accentuate just how she folds against Itachi’s own planes. Her dainty fingers, fingers that he once sucked on until they disappeared in his hungry mouth, rest against his brother’s chest, a large stone the color of her eyes crowned on top of the fourth one. Sasuke feels like vomiting.
Traitor, a voice quips.
It’s been six years. Let it go, a more rational one counters.
No one pays Sasuke no mind; it’s a family skill - pretending. Shisui just happens to skip the wretched genealogical curse of indifference. He elbows Sasuke on the side and tips his head.
“It’s a whirlwind romance. His heart attack after his biggest prosecution landed him on her ER. Love at first sight, intense sex probably, and now one month later, they’ve set a wedding for next week,” Shisui loops him in. “No hard feelings though?”
Sasuke shrugs. “We’re done and gone. How’s Izumi?”
“Fell off the face of the earth after her cheating stint - wait, let’s qualify that - emotional cheating stint.” Shisui is more like a boy than a man even though he’s a decade older than him. There’s a spring in his gait that brings him to various places, and one can barely keep up with him. Maybe that’s why he’s still alone; it takes a lot of upkeep to convince him to stay grounded. He lights up a stick even though their grandfather is at the front, clapping and saying his congratulations to the couple. “He says he’s overworked and has no time for domestic wishy washy, but look at him looped around your lover’s finger.”
“In his defense, he wasn’t here when we were together,” Sasuke replies. He snatches one stick from Shisui’s hand, god be damned, and puffs it alight in time for the two, still entangled in each other’s curves, to reach his and Shisui’s spot.
Itachi’s eyes dart to him, and it’s a quiet demand for acceptance. Nope, not a request, a demand. It’s his defining feature, the determination to turn anything into his with subtle disregard. And if it couldn’t be any more obvious, he tightens his hold on Sakura’s waist.
Shisui coughs on his smoke while Sasuke blows circles on their faces. “A crow turned to dove today. Congratulations.”
Yet he couldn’t deny the warmth that spreads to his brother’s face, so unlike the perpetually smiling version of him when he’s with Izumi. He smiles, and Sasuke has a hard time reading it as genuine or fake. He’s good at it before, but then life happens and suddenly you don’t know batshit about people after more than a year or so of separation. “Wouldn’t be surprised at that. Not when I landed myself a literal miracle.”
Itachi turns his gaze on Sakura who snuggles her chin on the crook of his neck, and while his brother is lost in the perfume of her air, Sasuke catches her ominous teasing glint. Shisui coughs again and excuses himself. He follows suit, snuffing out the half-lit cigarette with the butt of his shoe.
The impressionable pillars and the sharp cold of marbles and ivory are drowned in freshly cut ferns and preserved bouquets as servants go to work. Stashes of ribbon and silk are dragged from olden treasure boxes and glass containers to fill the spaces. The great hall isn’t so great anymore with these trinkets flying and swaying around until helpers find them a place of resting.
Uchiha matriarch Mikoto commandeers the kitchen with the goal of producing three cakes a day for Sakura to taste test while Fugaku and Madara are locked in the library, probably discussing the neoliberal politics of Obito and how his same sex marriage to the fallen Hatake family will affect his next reelection. Shisui is out cold on his bed with the remnants of edibles hidden in the space under the lamp.
And he is staring at boxwood hedges in the middle of a garden maze that old money traditionally acquires, trying to follow the trail and entanglements of the wooden veins. He would have missed her looking at him on the other side of the hedge if not for the mismatched green of her eyes.
“Already tired of your fiance?” Sasuke notes the edge in his own voice, but he doesn’t snatch his gaze.
“Your brother is devoted,” she remarks, rather happily. “Quite headstrong too the way he fought your grandfather for me.”
“Madara,” he feels his anger rise, “is senile. Of course, he wouldn’t put up a fight.”
Sakura’s laughter bubbles through the spaces. “You must give your brother some due. He’s sickly but he’s got a stronger backbone than you.”
He leans closer, his mouth almost spitting on her eyes. “Because if Madara isn’t, you’d be out of here faster than he could take a piss on his future deathbed with millions of dollars in your back account.”
Sakura’s eyes remain unmoving then it’s a flash of pink. She’s moving away, he observes, her heels tapping on the concrete blocks. “Fuck you, Sasuke.”
Despite his irritation and his still present anger, he follows her through the maze, her footsteps his beacon, and they soon face each other in the opening that leads to a dead end. That part of the maze is hidden by a willow tree, and there’s a small closure where its roots meet the wall and they form some sort of natural headboard. Sasuke hid here so many times before; to wipe dry the charcoal on his hand when he tried to learn from the town blacksmith or to escape his mother’s attempt at cross stitch. Sakura knows this place as well, away from Madara’s prying eyes and the servants’ gossip fodder.
“Ten million dollars,” he accuses her. “Two years of us is worth ten million dollars to you. How much is your rate for Itachi with only over a month? Five million tops? Ten million too because you are a loathsome vixen.”
She slaps him and the sound surprises the birds off the willow. “Well, if you’re ditching me to go abroad then might as well monetize my heartbreak.” He doesn’t feel anything at first, then comes the sting, and then the throb.
“Ditching you?” His voice climbs a notch. “When I haven’t booked a ticket out? How could you sell me out so fast?”
Sakura’s temper flares - intense yet short lived. “And how dare you leave me in the shadows as if we weren’t conniving behind your family’s back for two years? And yes, ten million is not enough for the wreck you left me in.” The anger reflects in her eyes, but it doesn’t do anything to diminish her allure. It’s intoxicating, even now, to be this close to her orbit.
“So you had to invite me here?” he scoffs even though the urge to get addicted is strong. “To give me back the disaster I set you upon?”
Her brows furrow in a challenge, and her jaw moves as she clenches her teeth. Is she getting high with his mere presence as well? His eyes minutely examines her microexpressions, and he catches it - the quick glance below and back to his eyes. He returns the gesture but much slower than she did, his sight doing what his hands could from her legs to the slit of her plaid skirt and what goes under that.
There’s a shift when untempered caution is thrown to the wind.
He steps in with the proximity like that of earlier between the hedges, his mouth levels with her eyes. “I gotta say, it’s not beyond you to manipulate Itachi between your legs just to get back at me.”
She slaps him again, but his hand catches her wrist. She wrestles it with the strength of a soft tug, and he immediately understands what she leaves unsaid as he dips down and captures her waiting lips in a full-mouthed kiss.
Turbulent and heady like the waves at the end of Ember Grounds protesting against the harshness of the cliffs. Her tongue lashes at him in violent demands and he complies in an equally desperate plunge to worship the taste of her. His thoughts are muddled and thick with fog, but there’s clarity in what he needs.
He pulls her closer in hopes that her body could remember how much more perfect she folds against him, her curves on the right places, and him filling her slopes and indentations. She trembles against his touch, and it gives him happiness the way he could still light her on fire.
They come up for air after what seems like hours of blissful drowning but are mere seconds. She bites down on his lower lip as if it’s a possession she isn’t willing to share while her hand gropes the straining member against his linen trousers. He leans against her touch, starving for the bare contact of her skin, and when she unzips it in freedom, it springs to life right into the clutch of her fingers with the slit directly hitting the metal of her engagement ring.
He secures her waist in the loop of his arm as he lays her down on the roots of the willow. She charges up, and his cock feels the brush of the autumn air.
“The stains. Everyone will know,” she seethes.
“If it’s the only imprint I can leave on you, then I’ll make sure you’re covered all over in green specks.” He captures her lips again in a kiss, only to muffle her gasp when his hand rips open her stockings and plunges into her dripping core, fabric and all. “You’re mine, Sakura. You need to remember that.”
He bites him; it’s a protest but he only goes deeper in both mouth and folds, fingers scissoring under, curling against her walls, and finding a steady rhythm. He releases her to watch the spectacle of her coming undone in her beautiful purple plaid coordinates, hair entangled with the roots, and her adorned ring finger grasped around his moist tip.
His fingers quicken the pace when his name leaves her lips in a plea. It’s an ephemeral conflagration, and he feels blessed being witness to this again.
“You’re right,” she says after some time. “It’s you I’m after all this time.” She disentangles herself from him and off the roots and grass. Her heels clack against the concrete, and on the first superficial glance, nothing looks amiss except when she comes up the stairs, her skirt hikes up a little bit more and shows a glimpse of her torn stockings.
She leaves him there, on the nook of the willow tree’s roots and the wall, simmering in the embers of her fire.
The rational thing Sasuke does is of course hole up in his room for the duration of the week, unwilling to be seduced again by a pink siren, and while Ember Grounds is a mansion of thirty rooms, he supposed one couldn’t hide for so long especially when it involves family luncheon and dinners.
They’re seated now on the long table that could have seated twenty but only entertained less than ten, adorned with dried flowers and pine leaves and lit candles, with pescatarian dishes all around.
Sasuke is nibbling on a morsel of lobster when someone’s foot brushes against his thigh. Sakura is seated across from him, fully attuned to what nonsense Itachi is spouting about his boring white collar cases, but she’s quite busy with her footwork underneath. He sighs, but it feels like he’s losing breath.
His mother taps on his shoulder, adding to his distraction and yet the minx does not stop her attack.
Mikoto smiles, and Sasuke feels the apology emanate from it, but would it still do good to be empathetic when it’s her advice to pursue a life abroad and wait two days until the flight to tell Sakura about it?
Or perhaps, it’s done in good faith, and it’s him that has no faith for the plans of his parent. Mikoto is a distant cousin of Fugaku, and once she tried to explain what runs in common in the veins of Uchihas. Intense love , she said, so intense it scorches everything on its path .
“You still love her.” It isn’t a question. “Six years is so long.
He loses his appetite. “If I say yes, what would you have done about it?” Sakura keeps on adjusting the reach of her foot. He helps her by shifting his posture and sliding a little. Her toes are now massaging the tip of his too hard cock.
“I would have coddled you like a mother would to her pained child. You didn’t have to come.” She gives him her unshelled shrimps - his favorite among the seafood - and gets the lobster off his plate. “Now eat.”
He closes his eyes which Mikoto just takes as a sign of frustration, but it’s the urgent want to have her mouth engulf him, her pink lipstick disappearing in the wetness of his cum. He adjusts his chair and straightens his posture, away from her relentless teasing. The change sends her glancing his way, and he responds with a smirk.
His appetite is back again.
Prior to his departure from this house, Sasuke has made it a routine to bring a pitcher of water to his room. By some weird tradition, Madara kept the kitchen locked at night, even to the servants, only to be unlocked by himself at dawn. Everyone gets a collection of food and drinks they bring to their room lest they wake up hungry and thirsty.
And tonight, that routine slipped his mind. If there’s one thing he learned however in his time in foreign countries, it’s how to pick a lock. He grumbles in annoyance and trudges the stairs.
It comes as a shock when he sees the kitchen open under dim lights. The sight of rose hair splayed on the sheer back of a nightgown ending inches above her knee greets him like a dream. Feeling his presence at the slight opening of the doors, she turns around, a half-eaten strawberry trapped in puckered lips, juices flowing on her chin.
He blames it on his half-asleep state when he shuts the doors behind him and turns the locks. While she sits on the counter waiting for his move, he goes directly to the refrigerator and takes a tub of chocolate spread. He’s not fond of sweets, it’s a universal fact, but tonight he feels like savoring desserts.
He comes to her with an offering, the strawberry already gone from her mouth. She takes another one from a bowl beside her. She sets it between her teeth, and she dips it on the tub he opened. Chocolate covered, he takes it from her lips, tasting first the overwhelming saccharine and finally the sourness of the fruit. The mixture mingles on their skin and drips into their clothes.
His tongue craves her taste the most so he kisses her and whispers love into her mouth until the flavors of chocolate and strawberry fade and only the essence of her is left. When they break the kiss, he ushers her down the counter to take off her nightgown. He dips a finger on the tub and draws lines across her body, from her collarbones to the valley of her chest, around her breasts, a dollop on the hardened peaks, and a straight line down to her navel.
Her hands come to him and pull his nightshirt off his torso. She similarly helps him discard his silk pajamas. There are no words exchanged, but they’re too well-acquainted with this dance they don’t need further instructions.
She willingly lays on the cold block of the kitchen island, now devoid of things that could fall, and he climbs on top of her, his tongue tracing the lines he drew. It’s an exquisite combination with the thick creamy texture of the spread sliding through her alabaster skin and his mouth that leaves her cold to the autumn draft that seeps through the windows.
He arrives at her breasts and he almost groans in satisfaction having to put the whole of it into his mouth, kneading, suckling, biting. He pays attention to the peaks because she particularly likes them nuzzled alternately with tongue and teeth, and so he does what is demanded of him. Her body curves upward in an intense reaction, and she is now writhing as he tastes his dessert.
His fingers find her mound, smooth to the touch, shaved off just for Uchiha Itachi or maybe in anticipation of her former lover. Well, he wouldn’t want to disappoint, especially when they’re already dripping wet. His thumb grazes over her clit and she heavily breathes his name.
One finger enters her as he reaches her navel. It’s exploring her insides, too quick for the refresher trip the other day so now it bides its time. He plunges another digit and her hands dig deeper into his back.
In and out in the same rhythmic pattern. His name sounds like a prayer in her small, muffled voice. He can feel her walls contracting, trapping his two fingers inside in her tightness. He pulls them out just before she orgasms and leaves the island.
“What the fuck?” she says, breathless but angry.
He raises a wet finger to shush her as he returns to the fridge. He opens the container of ice cubes and cringes when they make the most awful sound. He takes three, pops one in his mouth,and plops back on top of her but in a reverse position.
“Have you no patience, woman?” he whispers as he plunges one cube inside her.
Her gasp is so audible he wouldn’t be surprised if someone saunters in. But he’s got so much courage in him he needs to let it all go.
“No,” she simply answers and takes him into her mouth.
Sasuke has known ecstasy, has tasted it once, but it doesn’t quite come as close to this with her mouth wrapped around him, tongue massaging his skin, and the suckling sounds that send him reeling.
He starts his counter as he puts in another cube into her wet opening. She cries with him inside, almost biting him in the process, but when his cold mouth drinks the melting water from her bottom lips, she moans softly.
His ice-laden tongue nibbles her nub for a few seconds, giving it the utmost attention and care. After a few seconds of nibbling and sucking, he shifts to her watery core. There’s a puddle on the island, and he surmises the cubes have completely melted in the heat of her insides. His tongue laps up her outer folds, and he breathes over them.
This makes her shudder all over, the cold so close to her folds gives another stimulation. He doesn’t resist the tremors that come over him as well when she takes him all the way to her throat. Eager not to be outperformed he plunges his tongue inside her searing heat.
The eating and sucking pick up pace and soon they’re writhing against each other’s wet skin, cumming inside each other’s mouth.
“You can’t leave without putting it inside.” It isn’t a compromise, Sasuke knows.
He lifts himself off the island and pumps himself back up. She waits for him, legs propped beside her on the edges of the island, her core dripping directly on the marble floor. She offers him a condom, something that slipped his mind, and he doesn’t bother to ask her where she hid it.
He rips it open, sheathes himself, and she takes him in with wanton abandon. Sasuke captures her lips in a hungry kiss, the taste of him lingering in her tongue. Her breasts smack against her chest, and the building sensations send him moaning into his mouth. He breaks away, much to her disappointment, only to leave trails behind her ear.
“You can’t leave a mark, Sasuke,” she warns him. “I’m engaged, remember?”
His thrusts become stronger and harder, his cock slamming right up into her walls that she has to bite down on his shoulders to muffle the groans.
“I’ll give you an olive branch.” He moves away with a space enough to meet her eyes. There’s a confirmation with the way her lust for him gushes out of all her pores. “If I can’t mark you, then leave me with your imprint.”
So she does with fervor, with much certainty, with urgency.
Pinkish red marks on his shoulders, on his neck right where his pulse beats the strongest in time with her heartbeat, on his throat when he moans her name on her hair as they feel another tide coming.
She’s also grinding against him, the rhythm lost, replaced with frantic heed to crest. He grabs bunches of her hair and forces her to watch him watch her. They have to commit this to their memory, eyes trained on each other and names on each other’s mouths as the wave finally crests and crests and crests until it breaks apart in soft laps.
In some remote part of his mind, he registers the smell of something burning.
When Sasuke comes down for breakfast (or lunch because how in the world it’s already twelve noon) the next day, he finds animosity in the air. All of the present Uchiha members are gathered in the great hall, no longer great what with all the foliage and flowers that could be deadly to one with allergic rhinitis.
Sakura is in tears, and Itachi, his luggages beside him, is explaining something to Madara and Fugaku.
As usual, it is Shisui who recounts the events he missed. “It’s Izumi. She’s pregnant.”