Chapter Text
THE LIBRARY
Sasuke was warm for the first time all day.
His head rested on Naruto's shoulder. Their fingers were interlaced on the cushion between them, and Naruto's free hand traced idle patterns on Sasuke's knee while he talked. The scent of summer grass and citrus surrounded him, and Sasuke let himself sink into the weight of Naruto beside him. The steady rhythm of breathing that wasn't his own. Afternoon light pooled golden across the library's worn leather chairs and old paper, and for one hour, nothing existed outside these walls.
"Mexico," Naruto was saying. "That's where we go. South. All the way to the ocean."
"Mexico." Sasuke turned the word over in his mouth. Foreign but not unpleasant. "I don't speak Spanish."
"You speak four languages already. Five if you count the Italian. You'll figure it out." Naruto's thumb brushed across his knuckles. "Besides, I know enough to get us by. Here, guess what this means. Donde está el baño."
"Where is... something. El baño. The... bath?"
"Close enough. Bathroom." Naruto grinned. "Essential vocabulary, right there. Next one: Dos cervezas, por favor."
"Two..." Sasuke frowned slightly. "Cervezas. I don't know that word."
"Beers. Two beers, please." He held up two fingers like he was ordering. "See? Basically fluent already."
"What does beer taste like?"
Naruto turned to look at him. "You've never had beer?"
"I've had wine. Champagne at events. Nothing I chose myself." He paused. "Is it similar?"
Naruto laughed, a short surprised sound. "No. God, no. Beer is... it's cold, and kind of bitter, and it comes in a can that costs two dollars. It's what you drink on a hot day when you don't care what anything looks like." He squeezed Sasuke's hand. "I'm gonna buy you a beer. A cheap one. From a gas station. And you're gonna drink it out of the can like a normal person."
"That sounds genuinely awful." But a genuine smile tugged at his lips.
"That's the point." Naruto's grin widened. "Okay, last one. No me dispares."
"No me..." Sasuke frowned. "Don't... something me?"
"Don't shoot me."
"That's your essential vocabulary? Bathroom, cheap beer, and don't shoot me? Your priorities are very clear."
"You'd be surprised how far it gets you."
Naruto shifted, pulling Sasuke closer until his back was pressed against Naruto's chest. His voice dropped, softer now. "The ocean there is supposed to be incredible. Warm and blue, the kind you could swim in without freezing."
The ocean. Sasuke had been dreaming about it more often lately. Not the distant fantasy of birds over endless water anymore, but closer now. More real. Something that might actually happen instead of something to escape into.
"I want to walk into it," he said quietly. "All the way in. Until I can't touch the bottom anymore."
"You can swim, right?"
"Orochimaru had a pool. I was taught." The memory surfaced, chlorine, stinging eyes and instructors whose hands lingered too long while correcting his form, but it didn't drag him under the way it used to. "I've never been in open water, though. Never felt waves."
Fear lingered under Sasuke's scent, faint and old, the ghost of last night that hadn't fully faded. Naruto's Alpha surged toward it, wanting to hunt down whatever had caused it, and he forced his breathing to slow, forced his scent to stay neutral. Sasuke needed him steady right now, not raging.
"We'll find the perfect beach." His voice came out rougher than he intended, and he softened it. "Somewhere empty. No tourists, no crowds. Just sand and water and nobody watching."
Nobody watching. Sasuke let himself imagine it. Lying on his back in the water, arms spread wide, staring up at nothing but sky.
"What else?" he asked. "For the list."
They'd been building it for weeks now. Impossible things they would do when they escaped. Naruto never said if. Sasuke had stopped correcting him.
"Thrift stores," Naruto said. "We're going to one and you're picking out the ugliest shirt you can find. Something that costs three dollars and looks like it was made before either of us was born."
"Why ugly?"
"Because nobody's ever let you pick something ugly." Naruto's hand gestured vaguely at Sasuke's outfit, the blue cashmere sweater, the tailored trousers, the silver accents at his wrists. "Everything you own is beautiful and expensive and chosen by someone else. I want to see you in something comfortable. Something you pick, and the uglier, the comfier, the better."
Sasuke thought about his closet. The rows of blue silk and Italian wool, fine cashmere and tailored linen, all of it selected to make him into something worth displaying.
"I don't know what comfortable looks like," he admitted.
"Then we figure it out. Together." The same words Naruto always said. "Oh, and karaoke. We're doing karaoke."
"I don't think..."
"You're gonna sing badly and not care."
"I don't sing badly." The words came out stiff, automatic. "I was trained to..."
"That's the point." Naruto shifted so he could see Sasuke's face, his eyes bright with mischief. "You're gonna sing bad on purpose. Because it's fun. Because nobody's grading you. Here, I'll demonstrate."
"Demonstrate what?"
"Bad singing. For educational purposes." He cracked his knuckles dramatically. "Pay attention. I'm going to do my best Elvis impression. Prepare yourself."
"Your best..."
And then Naruto started singing.
"Wise men say," he crooned, one hand pressed to his chest, his voice wobbling somewhere between keys that didn't exist, "only fools rush in."
Sasuke stared at him.
"But I can't help," Naruto continued, reaching toward Sasuke with theatrical desperation, his voice cracking on every other note, "falling in love with you."
"Stop." Sasuke's voice came out strange. "You're... that's..."
Naruto didn't stop. He clutched at his heart like a dying man in a melodrama, launching into the next verse with even more theatrical agony. "Shall I stay? Would it be a sin," he warbled, somehow getting worse, "if I can't help falling in love with you?"
"That's not singing. That's assault."
"On your ears?"
"On the concept of music itself."
Naruto's grin widened, utterly unashamed.
"You should be arrested," Sasuke said, his voice flat. But he hadn't pulled away.
Naruto clutched his chest like he'd been shot, managing one more wavering line, "Take my hand, take my whole life too," his voice wobbling on the last note like something real had slipped through, before collapsing back against the window seat. "Wounded and devastated. My singing career, ended before it began."
Sasuke opened his mouth to respond, and something caught in his throat. Not words. His shoulders shook once. Then again. A sound escaped, unfamiliar and startling, and he realized he was laughing.
Not much. Barely a sound. More like his body had surprised itself, had remembered how to do this without his permission. But real. His first real laugh in years, pulled out of him by terrible singing and someone who looked at him now like he'd won something precious.
"There it is." Naruto's voice went soft. "There you are."
Sasuke didn't know what to say. The warmth was unfamiliar, almost painful, like blood returning to a limb that had been numb for too long.
The clock on the mantle read five forty-five. Fifteen minutes left. Never enough time.
"Tomorrow," Sasuke said. "Same time."
"Every day." Naruto's hand found his again, fingers interlacing. "Every day until we're standing in that ocean."
THE WAITING
The examination room was cold as always.
Sasuke sat on the padded table in a thin gown, bare feet hanging above the floor. Dr. Sato stood by the counter reviewing charts, her pen scratching notes without pause. Danzo occupied the observation chair with his legs crossed, watching.
"The taper is progressing as expected." Dr. Sato didn't look at Sasuke when she spoke. She never did. "He's been on half-dose for two weeks. We can move to complete cessation starting Monday."
"And then?" Danzo's voice carried anticipation barely contained beneath the calm.
"His first heat should manifest within two to four weeks of stopping suppressants entirely. Given his age and the length of suppression, it may be more intense than typical." She made a note on her clipboard. "I'd recommend clearing your schedule for two weeks. First heats can be unpredictable."
First heat. Sasuke had spent five years on suppressants, five years with his biology held dormant. He'd never experienced what they were describing. Had only read about it in the clinical texts Orochimaru required him to study. Fever and need and the desperate drive to be filled.
He wondered what it would feel like. If that part of him even still existed.
"Has he gained weight?" Danzo asked.
"Up two pounds since last month. The enriched diet is working. He's healthy enough to proceed."
Danzo rose from his chair and crossed to where Sasuke sat. His hand found Sasuke's chin, tilting his face up toward the fluorescent light. "Soon you'll bloom for me my dear. The way you were always meant to." He leaned down and kissed Sasuke, slow and possessive, before releasing his him.
Sasuke kept his eyes forward. Let himself be touched. Made himself smile.
He didn't answer. Danzo didn't expect him to.
----
Four weeks after the suppressants stopped entirely, Sasuke's body remained unchanged.
No fever. No heightened sensitivity. No restlessness or flushed skin or any of the signs Dr. Sato had told him to expect. He woke each morning and checked himself in the mirror, looking for evidence that something had changed, and found nothing. The same pale skin. The same steady temperature. Inside empty silence where his omega was supposed to live but even quieter now, though he didn’t know why.
Dr. Sato ran more tests. Adjusted his supplements. Drew blood and analyzed hormone levels and found nothing to explain the delay.
"His body should be responding by now," she told Danzo at the third appointment. "All indicators suggest he's healthy and fertile. There's no medical reason for this."
His eyes found Sasuke across the examination room.
"Then we wait," Danzo said. "And we hope his body remembers what it was designed for."
Sasuke sat on the examination table and said nothing. His hands were steady in his lap. His face was blank.
He only knew that Danzo's patience was wearing thin. And that his body, for the first time in ten years, wasn't obeying.
DANZO'S FRUSTRATION
The nights are getting worse.
Sasuke reaches for the library, for Naruto's arms around him, for the ocean they would find. The images flicker and scatter. He tries again. The ugly shirt from the thrift store. Naruto's terrible singing, take my hand, take my whole life too. It holds for a moment. Then Danzo's hands shift and everything breaks apart.
The birds won't come. The numbers scatter. Even Naruto is failing him now.
Danzo finishes with a grunt and rolls away.
Sasuke's body relaxes. Maybe tonight he'll be sent back to his room. Maybe he'll have a few hours to piece himself together before…
"It's been four weeks." Danzo's voice cuts through the dark. "I rearranged my entire schedule. Cleared two weeks for your heat, just as Dr. Sato recommended." He props himself up on one elbow. In the dim light, his face is half shadow. "And nothing."
"I don't know why I'm not, sir."
"Neither does she." Danzo's hand finds Sasuke's jaw. Tilts his face toward him with fingers that press too hard. "Orochimaru assured me you were ready. Assured me that a decade of preparation would deliver exactly what I want."
The grip tightens. Sasuke forces himself not to flinch.
"I've been patient with you, Sasuke. Very patient." Danzo's thumb finds the soft place beneath Sasuke's jaw, where his pulse beats against the skin. Presses into it. "But my patience has limits."
The pressure increases. Sasuke's heartbeat slows as Danzo compresses the artery. His vision spots at the edges. He forgets to breathe.
Then Danzo releases him. Sasuke gasps, involuntary, and hates himself for it.
"I don't want to hurt you." Danzo's thumb traces the place he'd just pressed, which is tender now. "You're too precious for that. But when you refuse to give me what I've waited for..." He sighs. "You make this harder than it needs to be."
Sasuke doesn't know what to say. His face must show something, because Danzo's expression shifts.
"You're quite exquisite when you're frightened." His voice drops, almost wondering. His fingers trace down Sasuke's throat, gentle now, the same hand that had just cut off his air. "Do you know how long I've dreamed of this? Of having you here, finally mine?"
The gentleness is worse than the violence. Sasuke can't predict which version of Danzo will surface from moment to moment. Can't brace for it.
"Sing for me." Danzo settles back against the pillows. "You have the voice of an angel. Orochimaru made sure of that." His eyes are half-closed, expecting obedience. "It's fortunate you satisfy me so well in other areas. Otherwise I'd have no use for you at all."
Sasuke sings. Something Italian. His voice wavers on the first note, throat raw from the pressure, and he braces for anger. But Danzo only hums approval, his hand finding Sasuke's thigh, stroking it absently while the music fills the room.
When the song ends, Danzo pulls him close.
"You'll stay tonight again. Every night, until your heat arrives." His arms wrap around Sasuke from behind, spooning him like a lover. His breath is warm against Sasuke's ear. "I've waited so long for you. You're worth every moment." His hand finds Sasuke's, squeezes hard enough that the bones grind together. "But why won't you give me what I need?"
His grip loosens. His hand moves to Sasuke's stomach, stroking slow circles.
"If your body won't cooperate..." Danzo's voice goes distant, thoughtful. Like he's working through a problem. "I suppose I could keep you anyway. Just like this. My beautiful companion." The stroking continues. "Find another omega to carry my heirs. Someone less... defective."
Sasuke lies perfectly still.
"But I don't want another omega." Danzo's arms tighten. "I want you. I want your children. I want everything Orochimaru promised me." His lips brush Sasuke's ear. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. But one thing is certain, no one else will ever have you."
He pauses, then keeps rubbing slow circles on Sasuke's stomach.
"So you're going to bloom for me, darling. One way or another."
Sasuke stares at the wall and doesn't sleep.
THE OBSERVATION
The music room at nine. The study at ten. Lunch at noon. The hours alone in his room. The library at five. Naruto knew Sasuke's schedule better than his own, had memorized it in the first week without meaning to, his Alpha unable to rest without knowing where his mate was at every moment of the day.
But today, breakfast ran late.
Naruto saw the bruise the moment Sasuke walked into the dining room.
It sat high on his jaw, dark and blotted against his pale skin. Purple and fresh. Naruto had never seen him hurt in a way that showed.
His Alpha went silent. Then it started screaming.
Naruto's chair scraped against the marble. He was halfway to standing before he realized he'd moved, before his brain caught up to what his body was trying to do.
Danzo's eyes found him across the table, calm and waiting.
Naruto sat back down. His hands found the edge of the table and gripped until the wood creaked. His Alpha was throwing itself against his ribs, howling, demanding he cross the room and tear apart the man who had hurt his mate.
He couldn't. He knew what Danzo would do to his crew. Knew what had happened to his brother when he'd refused to fall in line.
So he sat there and ate breakfast instead.
Sasuke moved to his usual chair at Danzo's right, his posture careful in a way Naruto recognized. Holding himself together through sheer will. His hands shook as he reached for his napkin, a fine tremor that he didn't seem to notice.
Danzo set two items on the table beside Sasuke's plate. A box of Belgian chocolates, tied with ribbon. And a velvet jewelry case.
"Gifts," Danzo said. "Open them."
Sasuke's fingers found the velvet case first. Inside, nestled against black silk, lay a collar. Woven gold bands designed to wrap around his throat, with a blue sapphire pendant at the center and a small lock at the back with an attachment for a leash.
"To match your earring." Danzo's voice was warm. "Stand up. Let me put it on you."
Sasuke stood. Danzo rose and moved behind him. The collar closed around his throat with a soft click.
"A complete set." Danzo's fingers lingered on the lock, then traced along Sasuke's neck. "Now I can take you anywhere I want. Show you off the way you deserve." He pressed a kiss to Sasuke’s cheek. “My beautiful omega.”
Under the table, Naruto's knuckles went white.
"Thank you, sir." Sasuke's voice came out steady. His hands didn't shake as he sat back down. But the sapphire at his throat caught the light with every swallow, every breath.
The bruise. The collar. The chocolates sitting pretty beside his plate. Naruto knew right away: something had escalated. Something had changed in that bedroom, and now Danzo was tightening his grip while pretending it was love.
Sasuke's stared at his plate. He wouldn't look at Naruto. The bruise on his jaw moved when he chewed, purple darkening into blue at the edges. He kept eating. Bite after bite. Acting normal while evidence of violence sat dark against his skin.
Naruto's coffee sat untouched. His hands were fists under the table, nails biting into his palms hard enough to draw blood.
Their eyes met.
Sasuke's slid away too fast, and Naruto's hands went still. Something had changed. Whatever happened last night had made Sasuke afraid to even look at him.
"Naruto."
Danzo's voice. He'd been watching. Had seen the chair scrape, the near-break, the way Naruto's eyes kept returning to Sasuke's jaw.
Naruto forced his attention across the table. "Sir?"
Danzo’s neutral expression changed slightly, recognition and calculation settling in.
"The Brooklyn reports. On my desk by noon." He paused. "And one more thing. I want someone stationed outside Sasuke's door. At all times. One of your crew. They're reliable." His smile didn't waver. "He's been fragile lately. I want to make sure he's safe."
Safe. Like Sasuke was the one who needed protecting.
"Additionally, there's a situation in Queens that needs your personal attention. Tonight. And the warehouse inventory needs a full audit this week."
More work. Less time. Naruto heard the message clearly: Stay away from what's mine.
"Yes, sir."
Danzo smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. He turned to Sasuke and set down his fork with deliberate care.
"Come, darling. We have appointments today. Dr. Sato wants to discuss alternative approaches to your... situation."
Sasuke rose from the table. The chocolates sat untouched beside his plate. The sapphire at his throat caught the light as he followed Danzo toward the door without looking back.
Naruto sat alone with his cold coffee and the crescents his nails had carved into his palms.
Danzo had seen. Had filed it away behind that smile.
And Naruto couldn't do a damn thing about it.
THE CALL
The examination room was empty except for them.
Sasuke sat on the examination table while Danzo paced, phone pressed to his ear. Dr. Sato had been dismissed ten minutes ago. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
"Yes, four weeks since complete cessation." Danzo's voice was clipped and professional, the tone he used for business that mattered. "No symptoms whatsoever. His body is simply... refusing."
Sasuke stopped breathing.
He knew that cadence. Knew the language of reports delivered across oceans. Knew exactly who was on the other end of that call.
"The modifications are intact. Scent profile as you designed it." Danzo's voice went cold. "Yes, I'm aware of what the tests indicated. The tests were clearly incomplete."
Sasuke recognized Orochimaru's influence in every word, the two of them discussing him like a failed experiment.
"I see." Danzo stopped pacing. His eyes found Sasuke across the room. "And you believe a personal examination would be more... illuminating?"
"Very well. I'll expect you Friday." His voice hardened. "I expect this fixed, Orochimaru. This is unacceptable."
The call ended. Danzo slipped the phone into his pocket and crossed the room, stopping directly in front of where Sasuke sat.
"Orochimaru will be arriving Friday." His voice was pleasant. Almost conversational. "He's concerned that his work may have developed... complications. He'd like to examine you himself. Determine why his masterpiece isn't performing as promised."
Orochimaru's hands. Being shaped, tested, modified, loaned out to whoever could afford the price. Learning exactly what his body was worth and to whom it belonged.
He'd thought crossing the ocean meant leaving that chapter behind.
"Sasuke."
Danzo was waiting for a response. His eyebrows had risen slightly, expectant.
Sasuke's mouth opened. Nothing came out. The room had gone distant and strange, the fluorescent hum too loud, his heartbeat too fast.
The slap came without warning.
Not hard enough to knock him off the table. Hard enough to snap his head to the side, to make his ear ring, to shock him back into his body with a burst of pain that layered on top of his already-bruised jaw.
"When I speak to you, you answer." Danzo's voice hadn't changed. Still pleasant. Still calm. "Say 'Yes, sir.'"
"Yes, sir." The words scraped out through the ringing in his skull.
"Orochimaru will arrive Friday. You will cooperate fully with his examination. You will remember what he made you to be and what purpose you were designed to serve." Danzo's hand found Sasuke's chin, gentler now, lifting his face up to inspect the damage. "Perhaps some time alone will help you remember yourself."
He released Sasuke and walked to the door.
"I'll send someone for you at dinner. Until then, stay here. Think about what your failure is costing both of us."
The door closed. The lock clicked from outside.
Sasuke sat in the cold room and didn't move. His jaw throbbed with two different kinds of pain now, the bruise and the fresh impact layered on top of each other. His hands were shaking in his lap.
Orochimaru was coming.
----
The memory surfaced without permission.
His thirteenth birthday. Orochimaru's study. A man Sasuke had never seen before sitting in the leather chair across from the desk, waiting. Watching him with eyes that traveled slowly from his face down to his shoes and back up again.
"This is Mr. Tanaka," Orochimaru had said, his hand resting on Sasuke's shoulder. "He'll be overseeing the next phase of your education."
Sasuke hadn't understood. Education happened in classrooms, with tutors, with books and music sheets and language exercises.
The man had smiled. Leaned forward in his chair. "Come here," he'd said. "Let me see what I'm paying for."
Orochimaru's hand had pressed gently on his shoulder blade and pushed forward.
"Go on, Sasuke. Show him what you've learned."
The walk across the study. Seven steps on thick carpet. The man's hands finding his hips when he got close enough, turning him around, examining him from every angle. The first time Sasuke understood that his body wasn't his. That it belonged to whoever could afford the price.
He'd cried afterward. That first time.
Orochimaru had been patient with him. Had sat beside him on the bed and explained that this was necessary. That crying would only make it harder. That the sooner he learned to comply, to stop resisting, the easier it would become.
He'd stopped crying by the third time. Stopped resisting by the fifth. By the tenth, the boy was gone.
Only the doll remained.
CHAPTER 6 TEASER:
Orochimaru returns. A theory that changes everything. And a gunshot that sets the clock ticking.