Chapter 1: The Arrival
Summary:
Sasuke arrives in New York, delivered to Danzo after ten years of being groomed by Orochimaru in Tokyo. Seventeen years old, hollow, trained to perfection. Danzo marks him with a blue sapphire earring, the finishing touch on a decade of ownership. From his window on the third floor, Naruto watches his new "assignment" arrive and is hit with a devastating truth: the broken boy in blue is his true mate. He can smell it through the artificial layers, can feel his Alpha screaming to protect, to claim, to save. But he can't. Not without getting his entire crew killed.
The next morning, they sit across from each other at Danzo's breakfast table. Yellow sapphire and blue sapphire, the matched set complete. Two caged birds who've forgotten how to fly.
Chapter Text
SASUKE’S ARRIVAL
New York blurred past in streaks of neon and shadow. Sasuke watched it from the backseat, head resting against cold glass, going nowhere inside himself. Orochimaru's voice hummed beside him, speaking into his phone about final arrangements. The words meant nothing. They never did.
The flight from Japan had taken fourteen hours. Sasuke barely remembered it. Tokyo, the estate where he'd spent ten years being shaped into this, all of it distant and unreal. Someone else's life.
Seventeen years old for two weeks now. The age that completed the arrangement.
His reflection stared back from the window, dark eyes empty of anything resembling thought. The boy in the glass had died at seven in Japan, when his family fell. What remained was polished, refined, prepared. Orochimaru had spent a decade making sure of it.
Everything had been preparation for one man. The languages, the music, the manners, the absolute compliance. All of it for this moment. For him. The man who'd been waiting across an ocean while Orochimaru crafted his prize.
But language and music weren't the only skills Orochimaru had cultivated. Sasuke had been taught other things too. The arts of pleasure. How to use his body, his hands, his mouth. How to perform, to please, to make himself into whatever a client wanted him to be. Orochimaru had loaned him out over the years, to men who paid handsomely for nights or weeks or sometimes months with the beautiful omega boy being groomed in Tokyo. Part of his education, Orochimaru called it. Ensuring he would be skilled enough, experienced enough, perfectly trained to satisfy the man who had owned him since he was seven, even if they'd never met."
Sasuke stopped counting hands years ago. How many beds he'd been placed in. How many times he'd floated up to the ceiling and let his body do what it had been trained to do while his mind went somewhere far away. He wasn't innocent. Had never been allowed innocence. But he'd also never been touched by someone who wanted HIM rather than what he could provide. Never known intimacy that wasn't a transaction or training.
He was seventeen years old and had never been kissed by someone who loved him.
And his Omega, the part of him that should have ached for connection, that should have yearned for a mate and a bond and something real, was as hollow as the rest of him. It had withdrawn years ago, retreating so deep inside that Sasuke sometimes forgot it existed at all. The suppressants helped. Five years of daily pills that kept his heats from ever manifesting, that numbed the biological urges being saved for the man waiting for him. But even before the suppressants, his Omega had learned to hide. To go quiet. To stop reaching for things that only brought pain.
Orochimaru had trained it well. Conditioned it to respond to certain scents, certain commands, certain men. Whatever spark of instinct might have once guided it toward a true match had been buried under years of manipulation. His Omega didn't yearn anymore. Didn't hope. Didn't recognize anything except the patterns it had been taught.
Just like Sasuke himself.
Two hollow things sharing one body, waiting to be told what to do next.
The car slowed. Stone and glass rose before them; isolated wealth tucked away from the city's prying eyes. Late August heat pressed against the windows, but the car's climate control kept everything regulated. Sasuke didn't notice either way. Temperature was something that happened to bodies, and he'd stopped living in his a long time ago.
"We're here." Orochimaru's hand on his shoulder, proprietary, about to complete the transfer. "Remember everything I taught you."
As if Sasuke could forget. Smile when expected. Speak when spoken to. Play beautifully. Recite poetry in four languages. Be the doll Orochimaru had crafted from a broken child.
The door opened. Warm air hit Sasuke's face. He stepped out smoothly, practiced grace in every movement.
Orochimaru had dressed him for this moment. A tailored coat in deep midnight blue, silk lining against the fitted cashmere sweater beneath. Slim trousers that elongated his already slender frame. Soft Italian leather shoes. His dark hair fell in soft, dark waves past his jaw, longer than most boys wore it, framing his face in a way that emphasized delicate features. Androgynous. Artful. The kind of hair that made strangers uncertain whether to call him pretty or handsome, and that uncertainty was the point. His owner had requested this look. Elegant. Ethereal. Feminine in a manner that made powerful men want to possess him.
Blue. Always blue. Orochimaru had discovered early that the color made Sasuke's pale skin glow, made his dark eyes appear bottomless. Had built an entire wardrobe around it. Sapphire and navy and midnight and cobalt. Colors of deep water and winter twilight. Colors that made him look like something from a painting rather than a person.
Gravel crunched under those expensive shoes he hadn't chosen. Clothes he hadn't picked. A life he'd never asked for.
"Exquisite." The voice came from the mansion's entrance. Silver hair caught the light from overhead fixtures. Expensive suit, predator's smile. "Even better than the photographs."
This was him. His purpose. The man he was made for.
The one who'd received reports, videos, progress updates for a decade while Orochimaru shaped him in Tokyo. The one who'd been waiting.
Sasuke stood still. Let himself be looked at. Appraised.
The man descended the steps slowly, circling. Sasuke kept his eyes forward, his breathing even, his face empty. Training held him immobile while this stranger examined his worth.
"Finally." The man's voice carried deep satisfaction. "In person. After all these years of watching you grow into this. All those glowing reports from your trainers. From the clients who sampled you along the way." His smile widened. "They all said you were extraordinary. I've been waiting to find out for myself."
Orochimaru stepped forward. "As agreed, seventeen years old, perfected in everything you specified."
"The videos didn't do you justice." Fingers traced along Sasuke's jaw, tilting his face toward the light. "You're even more beautiful than I imagined."
Beautiful. The word people used when they looked at porcelain dolls in glass cases. Pretty things with painted faces and empty eyes. Sasuke had heard it his whole life. It stopped meaning anything around age nine.
"Fully suppressed," Orochimaru added, voice carrying quiet pride. "No heats. Ready for you."
"A male Omega." The satisfaction deepened, almost reverent. "Mine. Finally."
The waiting was over.
Orochimaru left without looking back. The car door closed, the engine started, taillights disappeared into darkness. Sasuke watched it go and felt nothing. This was always how it ended.
People delivered him places and left.
His mother's last words echoed distantly: Run, Sasuke. Run.
She'd died trying to protect him. His father Fugaku had fought. Itachi had thrown himself between Sasuke and the attackers. All of them died that night while seven-year-old Sasuke hid and survived.
He didn't know who ordered it. Didn't know why his family had been targeted. Only knew that someone powerful had wanted them destroyed, and when the blood stopped flowing, Orochimaru had appeared with promises of safety and a purpose for the broken child left behind.
They died because he was rare. Because male Omegas were worth more than gold in certain circles. Because powerful men collected beautiful things and wouldn't stop until they owned them.
"Come." A hand found his elbow, guiding him forward. "Let me show you your room. I'm Danzo Shimura, by the way. The man you were made for."
Made for him. At least he was honest about it.
The mansion swallowed them. Marble floors, high ceilings, artwork worth more than most people's houses. Luxury as a cage. Sasuke had lived in places like this his whole life. Orochimaru's Tokyo estate had been equally beautiful, equally empty.
The bedroom was too large, too immaculate. King bed with silk sheets, floor to ceiling windows overlooking manicured gardens. The door closed behind them. The lock clicked. Sasuke heard it. Barely registered it. Locks were meaningless when you'd forgotten what freedom felt like.
He stood in the center of the room, hands at his sides, waiting for instructions.
"You're lovely." Danzo circled him again, slower. "But you need something. A finishing touch."
From his pocket, a small velvet box. He opened it with careful fingers. Inside, a sapphire stud, deep blue, flawless. Light caught in its depths.
"To mark what I've waited ten years to finally possess. Come here."
Sasuke moved. Stood where directed. Tilted his head when Danzo's fingers pressed his chin to the side. Let himself be positioned like he'd been taught.
The pierce gun was cold against his earlobe. The sharp pain came fast, clinical, intimate in its violation. Sasuke didn't flinch. Hadn't flinched in years. His body knew better than to react.
Danzo fastened the sapphire with care, possessive in every movement. His fingers lingered, tracing the curve of Sasuke's ear, the line of his jaw. "Flawless," he breathed. "So everyone knows you're mine."
The sapphire pressed into his skin, immediate and wrong, a physical marker of ownership.
Danzo stepped back, admiring his work. His eyes traveled over Sasuke with hunger barely contained. "Magnificent." A smile curved his lips. "Worth every year of waiting."
"Thank you." The expected response. Sasuke gave it automatically.
Danzo moved closer again, his hand sliding down Sasuke's arm. "Take off your clothes."
Sasuke's fingers found the first button of his shirt. Muscle memory took over. He'd done this before. Would do it again.
His mind drifted somewhere else while his hands worked. Up near the ceiling where he could watch his body move through the motions. The shirt fell away. Fabric pooling at his feet like shed skin.
Danzo's eyes traveled over him with the look of a man who'd finally received a long-awaited package. Sasuke stood there, naked and marked, while somewhere far away birds flew over endless ocean. White wings against blue sky. Free and wild and everything he wasn't.
Numbers arranged themselves in his head. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. Fibonacci sequence carrying him away from his body, from this room, from what came next.
Somewhere in his mind, he was still seven years old. Still hiding while his family fought and fell. Still hearing his mother's last words.
Run, Sasuke. Run.
But there was nowhere to run. There never had been.
----
Later, alone in his new cage, Sasuke stood at the window. Outside, darkness spread across the gardens. New York stretched beyond the walls. Somewhere in this country, people were free. People who chose their own clothes, rooms, lives. People who'd never been groomed for a singular role.
Tomorrow's outfit was already laid out on the velvet chair. Blue, of course. A flowing top with traditional Japanese elements, modern trousers tailored to make him look even more slender than he was. Silver accessories arranged beside it. Danzo had been specific about what he wanted, and the staff had complied.
Ten years of this. Ten years of being dressed like a doll, positioned like furniture, admired like art. Sasuke couldn't remember the last time he'd chosen what to wear. Couldn't remember if he even had preferences anymore. Blue was what he wore. Elegant was what he was. Beautiful was what he existed to be.
His hand rose, fingers finding the sapphire. It throbbed slightly. Metal and stone, but it felt heavier than it should.
The bed was too soft when he lay down. The sheets too expensive. Everything this man owned was expensive. Now including Sasuke.
He stared at the ceiling, counting patterns in the plaster. Sequences and progressions requiring no emotion. Somewhere in his mind, birds flew over endless ocean. Free and wild and everything he wasn't.
Eventually, sleep came. It always did.
NARUTO WATCHING
Naruto couldn't sleep. Nothing new about that. Twelve years in this house had taught him insomnia like a second language.
He paced his bedroom, third floor, restless energy burning through him the way it always did in the dead hours. Two in the morning. The hour when Danzo preferred to conduct business he didn't want seen in daylight.
His fingers found his left ear without thinking, pressing the yellow sapphire that had been there since his eighth birthday. A nervous habit Shikamaru always called him out on.
Tonight was different.
Tonight, after years of hearing about him, the Omega was finally arriving.
Danzo had been obsessed for as long as Naruto could remember. Years of hearing about the ideal male Omega being groomed in Japan. The rarest acquisition. 0.02 percent of Omegas are male, Danzo had said a thousand times, like a prayer. Male Omegas were the most coveted in the trafficking world.
And this one had been bred specifically for him.
Last week, Danzo had called him into his office. Opened a velvet box with careful fingers. Inside, a sapphire stud, deep blue, flawless.
"Yellow and blue. My complete set," Danzo had said, voice carrying years of planning.
Naruto had stared at the blue sapphire, his hand flying unconsciously to his own yellow one. The twin that would mark whatever broken thing arrived tonight.
"When he arrives," Danzo had continued, closing the box with a soft click, "you'll help me keep him safe. Others will covet him. Try to steal him. You're my weapon, Naruto. Your job is to make sure no one touches what's mine."
Another boy to watch suffer while Naruto stayed silent and useful.
Headlights cut through the darkness now, pulling Naruto back to the present. A black sedan, expensive and discreet, pulled up to the entrance.
This was it.
The driver's door opened first. An older man emerged, pale and angular. Orochimaru. The groomer. The one who'd been preparing this boy for a decade.
The back door opened.
Even from three floors up, even in the dim spill of the porch lights, Naruto understood immediately why Danzo had waited so long for this one.
The boy who stepped out moved like water, fluid and graceful and completely unconscious of it. Dark hair fell past his jaw, longer than most boys wore it, styled to frame a face that belonged in art museums. He was dressed in shades of blue so deep they looked black until the light caught them, elegant and expensive and deliberately, almost painfully beautiful. The kind of beauty that was cultivated, curated, designed to make people stare.
And it worked. Naruto couldn't look away.
But it was the contrast that got him. That carefully constructed exterior, all silk and softness and feminine grace, wrapped around something that wasn't soft at all. The boy held himself like he was made of glass and knew it. Like he'd learned long ago that beautiful things broke, and the only way to survive was to become so perfect that no one would dare.
Breathtaking. Even from here, even hollowed out and empty-eyed, absolutely breathtaking. Not because of the clothes or the styling or whatever expensive products made his hair catch the light like that. But because underneath all of it, Naruto could see someone real. Someone trapped. Someone who'd been turned into a doll and forgotten they'd ever been anything else.
Something about him made the air different. Made Naruto's skin prickle with awareness he couldn't name. Some scent on the breeze, faint and confusing, cutting through the distance in ways that shouldn't be possible.
But he pushed the sensation aside, watching as Danzo descended the steps to circle his newest prize. Watching as the boy stood motionless, let himself be examined like furniture. That kind of stillness wasn't learned overnight. That was years of training. That was what you looked like when you'd been groomed into a dressed-up doll.
The boy's face was what got him, though. Nothing. Absolutely nothing behind those eyes. No fear, no resignation, no anger. Emptiness so complete it was like looking into a void.
Orochimaru got back in the car. Drove away without looking back. The boy watched the taillights disappear with the same vacant expression he'd worn since arriving.
Danzo's hand on the boy's elbow, guiding him toward the entrance. They disappeared inside the mansion.
The door closed behind them.
That's when it hit.
The scent hit, and Naruto’s knees buckled. He caught himself on the window frame, fingers digging into wood hard enough to splinter, gasping for air that suddenly tasted like copper and lightning.
What the hell?
His body bent double, something lancing through his chest that wasn't quite pain. A different sensation altogether. One that made every nerve ending light up and scream.
The scent was everywhere now. Overwhelming. Wrong in ways that made his Alpha instincts recoil even as they reached for it desperately.
It was layered. The surface level hit first, sharp and commanding, like ozone and leather and chemicals that screamed artificial. Made his Alpha recoil from the wrongness even as it reached desperately for what lay beneath.
Danzo's scent preference. The modifications Orochimaru had spent years engineering.
But underneath that manufactured wrongness, buried so deep Naruto's Alpha had to claw through the artificial layers to find it, was the truth.
Clean, real and unmistakable.
Like winter rain on stone and something sweet he couldn't name. Perfect. The kind of scent that made every cell in his body sit up and pay attention.
Naruto forced himself upright, breathing hard. His hands shook. Every Alpha instinct he'd learned to control over twelve years of captivity was suddenly howling at him in a language he barely understood.
Protect. Claim. Go to him. MINE.
The word exploded through his blood, primal and absolute. Naruto's knees hit the floor.
This wasn't attraction. This wasn't Alpha instinct responding to a rare Omega. This was biology recognizing its match.
True mate.
The realization hit, and Naruto almost laughed. Would have laughed if he could breathe. Of course. Of fucking course.
The boy downstairs, the one Danzo had spent ten years waiting for, the one who'd been groomed and broken and delivered like cargo, was his true mate.
"No," Naruto breathed, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. "No. Not him. Please not him."
But biology didn't care about pleading. The bond was already trying to form, reaching through the mansion's floors and walls, demanding recognition. Demanding he go to his mate. Demanding he protect what was his.
Except his mate wasn't his. He belonged to Danzo Shimura.
Every instinct screamed to move, to break down every door between them, to rip his mate away from the man who owned them both.
Naruto's body tried to obey. His muscles tensed, ready to fight, ready to claim what biology said was his.
But he couldn't.
Not because of the beating that would follow. Naruto would take that gladly.
But Danzo wouldn't stop at beating him. Danzo would kill his crew. Shikamaru, Kiba, Rock Lee, Sakura and Ino. Everyone Naruto cared about would be executed if he stepped out of line. Danzo had made that clear years ago.
And Kurama's voice echoed in his head, the brother who'd raised him, who'd taught him loyalty before Danzo's men cut him down: You protect your people. No matter what.
Kurama had died protecting Naruto. Thrown himself in front of bullets meant for a seven year old who couldn't run fast enough. His last words: Run. Keep running. Don't let them catch you.
Naruto hadn't run fast enough. Danzo had caught him anyway.
And now, twelve years later, he couldn't let anyone else die for him.
So Naruto stayed on his knees by the window, gripping the frame until his hands bled, while his mate was three floors below in a locked room with Danzo Shimura.
Being touched. Being used. Right now. This exact moment.
And Naruto couldn't do a single damn thing about it.
----
A knock at his door made him jerk upright. He recognized the rhythm, the lazy tap that could only be Shikamaru.
"It's open," he managed.
Shikamaru slipped inside, took one look at Naruto on the floor, and closed the door behind him. "Saw the car arrive." He crossed the room and sat on the edge of Naruto's bed, studying him with calculating eyes. "You look like you're dying."
"Feel like it."
"What happened?"
Naruto pressed his palms against his eyes. The scent was still there, still everywhere, still destroying him. "I can't explain it."
"Try."
"You're Beta. You wouldn't understand."
Shikamaru was quiet for a moment. "The new kid. Danzo's prize Omega." It wasn't a question. "Something about his scent?"
Naruto laughed, but it came out broken. "Yeah. Something about his scent."
"Bad?"
"The opposite." Naruto's hands dropped to his lap. He stared at them, at the blood where splinters had dug in. "The exact opposite."
Shikamaru went still. Really still. Then: "Shit."
"Yeah."
"True mate?"
Naruto couldn't answer. Couldn't say it out loud. But his silence was answer enough.
Shikamaru exhaled slowly. "Of all the people in the world. Danzo's new toy turns out to be your..." He trailed off, running a hand over his face. "That's cosmically fucked up."
"Tell me about it."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing." The word tasted like ash. "What can I do? Go down there, try to take him? Danzo kills all of you. Every single one." Naruto looked up at Shikamaru. "I can't risk that. Even for..."
He couldn't finish the sentence.
Shikamaru nodded slowly. "So you survive it."
"I survive it."
"For how long?"
"However long I have to."
They sat in silence. Somewhere below, Naruto's mate was in a locked room with another Alpha. Being taken. Being violated in every way except the permanent one. And Naruto could smell him through floors and walls, could feel the recognition tearing through him, could do nothing except sit here and let it destroy him.
"Get some sleep," Shikamaru said finally, standing. "Breakfast is at eight. You know Danzo's going to want to show him off."
"I know."
"And Naruto?" Shikamaru paused at the door. "Whatever you're feeling right now, don't let it show at that table. The second Danzo figures out you're true mates, you're both dead."
"I know."
The door closed. Naruto was alone again.
He stayed on the floor for a long time, back against the wall, the yellow sapphire pressed against his palm. Twelve years of this earring. Twelve years of being owned. And now his true mate was somewhere in this house, wearing the blue sapphire that made them a matched set.
The sick joke of it would be hilarious if Naruto could breathe. Danzo wanted matching pets. Got matching mates instead.
Tomorrow he would sit across from him at Danzo's table. Learn his name. Pretend his entire world hadn't shattered and reformed around one devastating truth.
Somewhere between the bond trying to form and the knowledge of what defiance would cost, exhaustion finally dragged him under into broken sleep.
FIRST BREAKFAST
Naruto forced himself downstairs at seven fifty-five, eyes burning from the broken sleep. Every time he'd closed his eyes, the scent had pulled him back, winter rain threading through his dreams until he couldn't tell what was real and what was longing.
Voices from the kitchen made him pause at the bottom of the stairs. Danzo's voice, carrying that particular tone he used when laying down law.
Naruto moved closer. Stood in the shadow of the doorway where he could see without being seen.
The household staff had been assembled. Cooks, cleaners, attendants, everyone who kept the mansion running. They stood in a neat line while Danzo paced before them, hands clasped behind his back like a general addressing troops.
"The boy who arrived last night is not to be touched," Danzo said, voice cold and precise. "Not a hand on his shoulder. Not fingers brushing his arm. Nothing. He is mine and mine alone. Is that understood?"
Murmured assent from the line.
"You will not speak to him unless spoken to first. You will not make eye contact. You will not ask him questions about his past, his preferences, his feelings." Danzo paused, letting the weight of each rule settle. "He is not your friend. He is not a guest. He is my property. You will treat him as such."
Naruto's hands curled into fists at his sides.
"His name is Sasuke. You will address him as 'sir' or not at all. His meals will be prepared exactly as I specify. His clothing will be laid out each morning according to my instructions. His schedule is my schedule. His life is my decision."
Danzo smiled, and it didn't reach his eyes.
"I have waited ten years for him. He is the culmination of a decade of planning, of investment, and of patience. He is perfect, and he is mine. Anyone who damages that perfection, who touches what belongs to me, who disrupts the environment I am creating for him..." The pause stretched. "Will be dealt with accordingly. Questions?"
No one dared speak.
"Good. Dismissed."
The staff scattered. Naruto pressed himself against the wall as they filed past, then slipped toward the dining room before Danzo could spot him.
Sasuke. His mate's name was Sasuke.
And Danzo had just made it crystal clear exactly what the boy was to him. Property. Investment. Something to be controlled down to the smallest detail.
Naruto wanted to put his fist through a wall.
Instead, he walked into the dining room and sat in his usual chair on Danzo's left. The chair he'd occupied alone for twelve years.
The room was all marble and crystal, too large for three people. Staff moved through the space with practiced invisibility, setting the table with careful precision. They avoided Naruto's eyes now too; still shaken from the briefing they'd just endured.
The chair on Danzo's right sat empty. Waiting.
Footsteps on the stairs. Naruto's entire body went rigid.
Danzo appeared first, triumph radiating from him like heat. Then came Sasuke.
The scent hit Naruto before he even saw him clearly. Tore through his chest. Artificial layers harsh and commanding, ozone and leather. Danzo's preference. Orochimaru's modifications.
But underneath, buried deep, the truth. Winter rain on stone. Something sweet. His.
Naruto gripped the edge of the table. His knuckles went white.
Sasuke stepped into full view and Naruto's world narrowed to a single point.
Danzo had dressed him this morning. Of course he had. A traditional Japanese-inspired ensemble in layers of blue, the outer piece flowing like water when he moved, embroidered with silver thread so fine it was almost invisible until the light caught it. Beneath that, something softer, clinging to his slender frame. His hair had been styled again, pinned back on one side with a delicate silver clip that drew attention to the sapphire in his ear. His lips looked darker than they should, tinted with something subtle. His eyes, already striking, had been lined with the faintest touch of kohl.
A living doll. A work of art. Everything about him designed to be looked at, admired and coveted.
And Naruto hated it. Hated the way the costume erased the person underneath. Hated that he could see exactly what Danzo was doing, feminizing him, making him into a fantasy rather than a human being. Hated that it worked, that he was genuinely beautiful, and that the beauty was a prison he'd probably been locked in since childhood.
But underneath the silk and silver, underneath the careful styling and the tinted lips, Naruto could see him. The real him. The exhaustion in those dark eyes. The way his hands stayed perfectly still because he'd learned that fidgeting got punished. The mechanical precision of his movements, nothing spontaneous, nothing natural remaining.
The blue sapphire caught the morning light. Matching his outfit. Matching his prison.
This was what a decade of grooming looked like. This was what you became when someone spent years breaking you into the perfect product.
Danzo settled into his chair at the head of the table, pride radiating from him. "Naruto, meet Sasuke. Sasuke, this is Naruto. You'll be seeing a lot of each other."
Danzo's eyes stayed on Naruto, watching his reaction with barely concealed amusement. "He was exquisite last night. Even better than I imagined." His hand reached out, touching the blue sapphire with possessive fingers. "Do you like it, Naruto? The blue sapphire? It completes the set."
Exquisite. Last night. The words painted pictures Naruto's Alpha howled against.
Sasuke stood still while Danzo touched him. Dissected him. Talked about him like he wasn't there. His face remained blank. He was used to this. Used to being discussed like an object.
"Hello," Sasuke said. Flat, empty and automatic.
Naruto tried to speak. His throat closed up. He forced air through it. "Hey."
Danzo gestured to the empty chair. "Sit, darling. Let's have breakfast."
Sasuke moved with practiced grace. Sat where directed. Placed his napkin in his lap with careful precision. Every movement choreographed.
The matched set was complete now. Yellow and blue catching the light. Both marked. Both owned.
Staff brought food. Eggs, toast, fresh fruit. Sasuke's plate landed in front of him and Naruto watched something flicker across his face. Not quite dread. More like resignation.
He picked up his fork. Took a small bite. His throat worked as he forced it down.
Too thin. Not eating enough. The observations came unwanted. Naruto's Alpha assessing everything wrong, everything that needed fixing, everything he couldn't touch.
And underneath the assessment, something else. His Alpha reaching out, instinctively, the way it had been doing since the scent first hit. Searching for the Omega that should be there. For the response that biology promised. For any flicker of recognition.
Nothing. Absolute silence. Like reaching for something that didn't exist.
Naruto's hand clenched under the table. His Alpha recoiled, confused and wounded. His mate was RIGHT THERE but the Omega inside him was... gone. Buried or broken or both.
He forced his expression to stay neutral. Forced his body to stay still.
Danzo turned his attention to Sasuke. "You're barely eating." His voice stayed pleasant but carried an edge. "I have a special place in this house. A library. Beautiful room, floor-to-ceiling books. One hour each day, five to six in the evening. It's yours." He paused, letting the gift settle. "As long as you behave."
Sasuke's spine straightened slightly. Not much. Enough to show the words had landed. His fork moved faster. Bites still small but more frequent. Forcing compliance through his body's resistance.
Already using freedom as leverage. Already holding his only hour hostage.
Danzo's eyes caught on Naruto's hands, the torn skin, dried blood, but he said nothing. "The Chicago shipment?
Right. Business. Normal breakfast conversation. Like everything was fine.
"Arriving tonight," Naruto managed. His voice came out rougher than intended. "Shikamaru's handling the pickup."
"Good. And the territory dispute in Brooklyn?"
"Resolved. They won't be a problem anymore."
Naruto answered on autopilot, his brain operating on muscle memory. He couldn't stop watching Sasuke from the corner of his eye. The way he held his cup. The careful way he cut his food into precise pieces. The way he sat motionless when not actively required to move.
Every movement was trained. Nothing spontaneous or natural remained.
Danzo's hand found Sasuke's shoulder, possessive and claiming. "Sasuke speaks four languages fluently. Japanese, English, French, and Mandarin. Don't you, darling?"
"Yes, sir."
"Demonstrate for Naruto."
Sasuke switched languages without hesitation. French first, the words flowing flawlessly. Something about being honored to be here, grateful for the opportunity. Then Mandarin. Then Japanese. Each language delivered with the same flat precision, like he was reciting from a script.
A trained seal performing tricks.
When Sasuke finished, Danzo's fingers traced along Sasuke's jaw. "Magnificent, isn't he?
Naruto's nails bit into his palms under the table.
The rest of breakfast passed in torture. Danzo held court between them, discussing business with Naruto while occasionally touching Sasuke, adjusting him, reminding him of his place. Sasuke ate mechanically, small bites forced down, eyes fixed on nothing.
Finally, Danzo pushed back from the table. "I trust you'll keep the Chicago shipment running smoothly."
"Yes, sir."
"Good." Danzo stood, offering his hand to Sasuke. "Come, darling. We have a full day ahead. I want to show you the gardens, introduce you to the staff. Let everyone see what ten years of patience has brought me."
Sasuke rose with practiced grace. "Thank you for breakfast."
He didn't look at Naruto. Didn't acknowledge him at all. Followed Danzo toward the door with complete obedience.
At the threshold, Danzo paused. Looked back at Naruto with something like triumph in his eyes. "Isn't he perfect? Everything I imagined and more."
Naruto couldn't answer. Could only watch as Sasuke walked away with another Alpha's hand on his back.
The door closed behind them.
Naruto sat alone at the table, surrounded by the ruins of breakfast, the scent of winter rain fading with every step Sasuke took away from him.
His mate. His true mate. Walking toward a day of being shown off like a prize horse. Toward a day of submission and performances. Toward a night of things Naruto couldn't let himself think about.
And tomorrow would be the same. Breakfast across from him. Meetings where they'd both be present. The same house, the same air, the same unbearable closeness.
Unable to touch. Unable to save. Unable to claim.
This was his life now.
Naruto's hand found his ear, pressing the yellow sapphire until it hurt.
Somewhere in this mansion, Sasuke was learning the same lessons Naruto had learned at seven. What it meant to be property. What it meant to follow the rules. What it meant to forget you'd ever been anything else.
Two caged birds who'd forgotten how to fly.
Both marked with sapphires that caught the light.
Both owned by the same man.
Both trapped in different kinds of cages.
CHAPTER 2: TEASER
Naruto barely made it through breakfast. Sasuke barely made it through the day. But somewhere between the silence of the staff and the weight of Danzo's hands, there was a library. And a question no one had ever asked him before: Can I come in?
Chapter 2: The First Night
Summary:
Sasuke's first full day in captivity moves through suffocating routine: piano for Danzo, performance for the Brooklyn associates, and then the library, his one hour of freedom. Naruto finds him there, reading about arctic terns, and something quiet shifts between them. Birds that chase summer. An invitation to come back tomorrow.
But the day ends as it must. Sasuke transformed into Danzo's doll, dancing to Clair de Lune while his mind flies far away. Three floors above, Naruto fights every instinct screaming at him to save his mate.
Notes:
Hello everyone,💕
Here is chapter 2. Please enjoy. 💕💕
Note. posting again because it glitched when I did it earlier.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
NARUTO'S CRISIS
Naruto barely made it through breakfast.
The second Danzo dismissed them, the second Sasuke rose from his chair and followed Danzo out without a backward glance, Naruto's composure cracked. He made it to the hallway outside his office before his knees gave out.
Cold marble against his back. The only thing keeping him upright while his lungs forgot how to work.
Winter rain. Still there. Still everywhere. Still wrecking him.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking. He'd held them under the table through the entire meal, fingers locked together so tight his knuckles ached, and still they trembled now. The effort of sitting there, of eating, of pretending his Alpha wasn't clawing at his chest trying to get out. Every instinct screaming wrong wrong wrong while he chewed and swallowed and answered questions about Brooklyn shipments.
And he'd have to do it again. Tomorrow. The day after. Every day until one of them died.
"That bad, huh?" Shikamaru's voice, low and close. Naruto hadn't heard him approach.
"Worse than I thought it would be." Naruto didn't open his eyes. "Watching Danzo touch him. Making him perform like a trained animal. And when I reached for him at the table, trying to find his Omega..." He swallowed hard. "Like shouting into an empty canyon. Nothing came back."
"Ten years of conditioning."
"I know what they did to him. I can see it. This perfect crafted doll that sits and smiles and speaks four languages on command." Naruto opened his eyes. "And somewhere underneath all that is my mate, and I can't reach him, and I can't help him, and I get to watch Danzo parade him around like a trophy while I sit there pretending I don't want to tear the whole house down."
Shikamaru leaned against the wall beside him. "You held it together. That's something."
"Barely."
"Barely counts." Shikamaru's voice carried no judgment. "Brooklyn associates at ten. You good?"
The meeting. Hours in a room discussing territory and shipments. Hours of being professional, being useful, being the weapon Danzo required.
"Yeah." He pushed himself off the wall. "I'm good."
He wasn't. But he'd been faking it for twelve years.
SASUKE'S DAY
He stopped existing immediately.
After breakfast, Danzo led Sasuke through the mansion with his hand on his lower back. Staff members avoided them as they approached, eyes fixed on the floor. Not one of them looked at him. Not one spoke.
Like being a ghost. A beautiful, elegantly dressed ghost drifting through corridors where living people refused to acknowledge he existed.
Danzo had given him rules this morning, and the staff's behavior made clear they'd been given matching ones. He was property. Not to speak unless spoken to. Not to be treated as anything resembling human.
In Tokyo, there had been other boys sometimes. Other acquisitions passing through Orochimaru's hands. Brief connections that meant nothing but at least reminded Sasuke that other people existed, that conversation was possible, that the sound of his own voice didn't only emerge when commanded.
Here, there was only Danzo. The staff who moved around him like furniture. And the blonde from breakfast, Naruto, who moved through the mansion like he belonged but didn't fit any pattern Sasuke recognized. He wasn't like Danzo. Wasn't like Orochimaru. Wasn't like all the other men Sasuke was forced to be with.
The music room came first.
A Steinway grand dominated the space, polished to a mirror shine. Sheet music arranged on the stand. Chopin and Debussy, pieces Orochimaru had made him master years ago.
"Play," Danzo said, settling into a velvet armchair positioned for optimal viewing. "I want to hear what ten years of investment sounds like."
Sasuke sat at the bench. Adjusted his posture. Let his fingers find the keys.
The music poured out of him, technically flawless, emotionally vacant. His hands moved from memory while his mind drifted elsewhere. Up near the ceiling, watching his body at the piano. Out the window, following birds wheeling against grey sky. Anywhere but here.
Danzo watched with obvious pleasure. Sometimes his eyes closed, absorbing the sound. Sometimes they stayed open, fixed on Sasuke's hands, his profile, the way blue silk shifted when he moved.
An hour and a half passed. Sasuke's fingers ached. He kept playing.
"Enough." Danzo stood. "You play beautifully. Orochimaru trained you well."
"Thank you, sir."
"The Brooklyn associates are here. You'll sit with me during the meeting." Danzo's fingers found Sasuke's chin, angling his face up. "Look beautiful. Remind everyone what I've created."
"Yes, sir."
The office was dark wood and leather, masculine in ways that made Sasuke's feminized appearance stand out like a flower in concrete.
Naruto was already there when they arrived, standing near the window with papers in hand. His eyes flickered to Sasuke for a fraction of a second before fixing on Danzo.
"The Brooklyn reports, as requested." Naruto's voice was steady. Professional.
"Good." Danzo settled into his chair behind the desk and patted his thigh. "Sasuke. Here."
Sasuke's feet carried him forward.
His body had done this before. Countless times, for countless men who wanted the same thing. The pretty doll perched on their lap like a trophy. Something to pet while they conducted business. Something to remind everyone in the room exactly what kind of power they wielded.
He lowered himself onto Danzo's lap, arranging his limbs the way he'd been taught. Back straight but angled toward Danzo's chest. Legs crossed at the ankle. Hands folded, still and quiet and decorative.
Danzo's arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him close. Danzo's scent hit him immediately, dark and commanding. Orochimaru had spent years conditioning him to respond to it. Sasuke's body softened into the touch automatically. Years of conditioning made it automatic. This scent meant comply. This scent meant submit. His Omega, buried as it was, responded to the programming, making him softer, more pliant, easier to arrange.
The other hand came up to stroke his hair, and Sasuke let it happen, let himself be touched, because his biology had been rewritten to accept this man's hands.
"Perfect," Danzo murmured against his ear. "My perfect boy."
From somewhere across the room came a soft sound. Paper crinkling. Sasuke's eyes found Naruto without meaning to, found him standing rigid by the window, his grip on the reports so tight the pages had crumpled. His face showed nothing. His body told a different story.
Odd. Why would Danzo's second-in-command care how his master handled his property?
"You're crumpling the reports." Danzo's tone was mild, but his eyes weren't. Naruto smoothed the papers without a word.
Deep inside, something stirred. Not the trained compliance that washed through him when Danzo's scent hit, not the programmed softening that made his body pliant. This was different. His Omega seemed to shift toward Naruto. A subtle pull he couldn't explain, couldn't name, one that made no sense given everything he'd learned about Alphas. The sensation lasted only a moment before it faded back into stillness.
Sasuke didn't know what to make of it. Dismissed it as fatigue, as the strangeness of a new place, as nothing worth examining.
He went somewhere else.
It was a skill he'd perfected at nine, the first time Orochimaru loaned him out. The ability to leave his body behind like a vacant house while his mind retreated to rooms no one else could enter. Up near the ceiling where he could watch from a safe distance. Into the numbers that required nothing but logic. Into the birds that flew free while he stayed caged.
His face stayed serene, exactly what Danzo wanted to see. His hands didn't tremble. His breathing didn't change.
Prime numbers spiraling outward. Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen. Each number a step further from the hands on his body. From the breath on his neck.
The Brooklyn associates were already seated. Three men in expensive suits who looked at Sasuke the way collectors looked at rare art.
"Quite the acquisition," one said, settling into a chair across from Danzo's desk. His eyes traveled over Sasuke with open appreciation. "The rumors didn't do him justice."
"Ten years in the making." Danzo's hand moved along Sasuke's thigh, possessive and casual. "Orochimaru outdid himself. Speaks four languages fluently, plus some Italian and Russian. Plays piano and violin at concert level. Recites classical poetry from memory." His fingers traced up Sasuke's arm.
Danzo's fingers found his chin, turning his face toward the associates. Sasuke's head moved with the pressure, not because he chose to, but because Danzo's hand did.
"Show them, darling. Something in French."
Sasuke's lips parted, and the verses came automatically. Baudelaire. Something about the sea, the infinite rocking. His voice carried the words with perfect pronunciation while his mind stayed far away, counting primes, watching birds.
The associates made appreciative sounds. One leaned forward slightly.
"Magnificent," he breathed.
"And that's not even his best talent." Danzo's hand found Sasuke's chin, turning his face. "Kiss me. Show them how well you've been trained."
Sasuke leaned in without hesitation. Pressed his lips to Danzo's the way he'd been taught, soft and yielding and perfectly performed. Let Danzo deepen it, let him take, let his body demonstrate the complete ownership this man possessed.
When Danzo released him, the associates were staring. One shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Another's eyes had gone dark with something Sasuke recognized.
Across the room, Naruto's body had gone rigid. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. His knuckles were white around the crumpled reports. Something dangerous flickered behind his eyes, quickly suppressed.
Sasuke didn't understand why.
"May I?" The second associate was leaning forward now, reaching toward Sasuke's face.
Danzo's hand snapped out. Caught the man's wrist. Squeezed until something cracked and the associate went pale.
"Look, don't touch." Danzo's voice stayed pleasant, almost friendly. "He's not for sampling."
The associate yanked his hand back, cradling his wrist. Fear flickered behind the greed in his eyes. "Of course. My apologies."
Sasuke hadn't flinched. Hadn't reacted at all. The almost-touch, the violence, the reminder that his body was valuable enough to protect with broken bones. None of it mattered.
He kept counting primes. Went nowhere inside himself. Let his body sit pretty while his mind flew somewhere far away.
But somewhere in the numbers, he kept returning to the same question.
Why did Naruto look at him like that?
THE LIBRARY
At five o'clock, a staff member appeared in the doorway of Danzo's study.
Sasuke had been sitting in his designated chair for hours, a book on Renaissance art open in his lap. Educational material. Approved reading. He turned pages at appropriate intervals while Danzo worked at his desk, occasionally glancing up to admire his acquisition.
The staff member gestured toward the hall. Eyes averted. Silent.
"Your library hour, darling." Danzo didn't look up from his papers. "Go on."
Sasuke rose, closing the art book with careful hands.
"Remember," Danzo added, an edge in his voice, "this privilege exists because I allow it. One hour. Five to six. Behave, and you may keep it." He finally looked up, and his smile didn't reach his eyes. "Disappoint me, and I'll find other uses for that time."
The threat settled over Sasuke like a familiar weight. He nodded once and followed the staff member out.
They stopped at a door Sasuke hadn't noticed before. The staff member gestured once, then retreated down the corridor without a word.
Sasuke opened the door.
And stopped breathing.
Books. Thousands of them. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, more books than he'd ever seen in one place. The room stretched before him like something from a fever dream, all dark wood and worn leather chairs and afternoon light filtering through tall windows. The smell of old paper and binding glue hit him the moment he stepped inside.
In Tokyo, Orochimaru had allowed him limited reading. Approved texts only, carefully curated to make him more valuable. Art history. Poetry. Music theory. Nothing that might give him ideas about the world outside his gilded cage.
This was different. This was chaos and possibility and more choices than Sasuke knew how to process.
He moved into the room slowly, half expecting it to dissolve like a mirage. A window seat caught his attention first. Built into a bay window overlooking the gardens, cushions faded from years of use. It looked like the kind of place where someone might curl up and disappear for hours.
It looked like the kind of place that might be his.
But first, he needed to find something specific.
His eyes scanned the nearest shelf. History. Philosophy. Poetry. He moved along the wall, fingers trailing across spines, looking for anything about birds.
Migration Patterns of Arctic Birds. It was the first one he found.
Sasuke pulled it from the shelf and settled into the window seat, drawing his knees up, making himself small. He opened it to a random page. Photographs of white birds against blue sky. Diagrams of flight paths stretching across continents. Text describing journeys of fourteen thousand miles, pole to pole, the longest migration of any living creature.
Arctic terns, the caption read. They chase summer their entire lives, never experiencing winter.
Sasuke stared at the photograph. White wings against endless blue. Freedom so complete it seemed impossible.
He read for what must have been half an hour. Lost himself in facts about wing structures and navigation instincts and how the birds used stars and magnetic fields to find their way across oceans. No training. No programming. They simply knew where they belonged and flew there.
A sound at the door made him look up.
Naruto stood in the doorway, hovering like he wasn't sure he was allowed to enter. Like he'd been standing there a while, fighting with himself about whether to come in at all. His hand went to his ear once, touched the yellow sapphire, then dropped back to his side like he'd caught himself.
Sasuke closed the book halfway, marking his place with his thumb. Waited.
"Can I come in?" Naruto's voice was different than it had been in the office. Softer. Less controlled.
Strange question. No one had ever asked Sasuke's permission for anything.
"Okay," he said.
Naruto moved into the room, but he didn't approach the window seat. Instead, he sat in a chair across the space, leaving distance between them. Not crowding. Not demanding.
Silence settled over the room. It should have been uncomfortable, the way silence usually was when Sasuke was alone with Alphas. Charged with expectation. Heavy with what came next.
This silence was different. Naruto wasn't looking at him the way others looked. Wasn't assessing his features or calculating his value. He was simply there. Existing in the same space without making demands.
Minutes passed. Sasuke found himself returning to his book, pulled back into migration patterns and impossible journeys. He could sense Naruto across the room, a presence that didn't demand anything from him.
"What are you reading?" Naruto's voice broke the silence, quiet and careful.
Sasuke looked up. "Arctic terns. They migrate fourteen thousand miles every year. Pole to pole."
"Fourteen thousand miles." Naruto's voice shifted, something like wonder creeping into it. "That's really far."
"The longest migration of any animal." Sasuke heard his own voice change, losing some of its flatness. "They chase summer. They never experience winter their whole lives. They just fly."
"Must be nice." The words came out raw. Naruto's eyes held something complicated. "Just flying wherever you want. Nobody telling you where to go."
"Yes." Sasuke's voice went quiet. "It must be."
They sat in silence again, but it was different now. Something had shifted. Some small connection had formed in the space between them.
The afternoon light had begun to soften, shadows lengthening across the carpet. Naruto shifted in his chair, glancing toward the window, and Sasuke followed his gaze to the clock on the mantle. Five minutes to six.
Naruto stood, and Sasuke's breath caught. A small panic he didn't understand.
"I should go," Naruto said quietly. "Before they come for you."
He didn't explain further. Didn't need to. They both understood, instinctively, that this needed to stay hidden. That Danzo wouldn't want them together. That being caught could mean losing this hour entirely.
Naruto moved toward the door, footsteps soft on the carpet.
"Wait."
The word escaped before Sasuke could stop it. His hands trembled slightly at his sides. He shouldn't ask. Shouldn't want anything. Wanting things only led to them being taken away.
Naruto turned back, his expression unguarded for just a moment.
"Tomorrow." Sasuke's voice came out barely above a whisper. "If you... you could come back. If you wanted."
First invitation he'd offered anyone in years.
Naruto's eyes widened. The devastation that always seemed to lurk behind them cracked into something brighter.
"Yeah." His voice was rough but eager. "I'll be here. Same time."
Sasuke nodded quickly, looking away before he could see whatever else might show on Naruto's face.
Naruto slipped out, pulling the door mostly closed behind him.
A minute later, footsteps in the corridor. The staff member appeared in the doorway, eyes averted, and gestured toward the hall.
Sasuke closed his book. Set it on the window seat cushion with careful hands. The bird book. He'd leave it here, knowing it would be waiting when he returned.
Knowing Naruto would be too.
He stood. Smoothed his clothing. Followed the staff member out.
The doll was being summoned.
But somewhere underneath, the boy who had asked someone to come back tomorrow was still breathing.
THE TRANSFORMATION
The staff member led him back to his room, where two more waited with garment bags and cases of supplies. They didn't acknowledge him. Didn't look at his face. Simply gestured toward the bathroom and waited.
Sasuke understood. He stripped without being asked, leaving his clothes in a neat pile, and stepped into the shower.
The water was too hot, the way he preferred it. Not that anyone had asked his preference. They simply set the temperature the same way Orochimaru's staff always had. Through the frosted glass, he could see the shadows of the staff members waiting. Patient. Unhurried. They would stand there until he finished, and then they would remake him into whatever Danzo wanted for the evening.
He stood under the spray and let the heat scour away whatever humanity had accumulated during his library hour. The conversation with Naruto. The comfortable silence. The strange pull toward someone who didn't seem to want anything from him.
All of it washed down the drain.
When he emerged, they were ready.
Towels first, patting him dry with impersonal efficiency. Then the lotions, the oils, the preparations that made his skin gleam under light. Their hands moved over him like he was furniture being polished. He stood still and let it happen.
The suppressants were just another form of preparation. Five years of daily pills keeping his heats locked away, his body held dormant, saved for the man who owned him.
The evening outfit had been laid out on his bed. Blue again, always blue, but darker than the morning's ensemble. A fitted shirt in midnight silk that clung to his shoulders and chest. Trousers tailored so precisely they might have been sewn onto his body.
One staff member dressed him while the other prepared the cosmetics. Sasuke raised his arms when directed. Turned when prompted. Stood motionless while they worked.
His hair came next. They toweled it carefully, then worked through it with a dryer until it fell in soft waves. Silver clips positioned just so, drawing the eye along the line of his jaw toward the sapphire in his ear. Every strand deliberate. Every detail calculated.
Then his face. He tilted toward the light so the kohl could be applied to his eyes, a thin line of midnight blue beneath it. His lips tinted that shade of dark rose Danzo preferred. The makeup was subtle but transformative, making his features more striking, more vulnerable.
He watched it happen in the mirror. Watched the person from the library disappear, replaced by the perfect porcelain doll. The boy who had curled in the window seat reading about arctic terns was gone. In his place stood something beautiful and hollow and ready to be displayed.
The process took forty-five minutes. Neither staff member spoke a single word.
When they finished, they gathered their supplies and left. Still silent. Still not looking at him.
Sasuke was expected to wait.
He settled into the chair by the window, picking up the book that had been placed on the side table. A history of French impressionism. Approved reading.
He opened it but his eyes glazed over. Just stared at the pages while the minutes crawled past.
In the mirror across the room, his reflection stared back. The sapphire caught the fading light, bright against pale skin. Such a small thing to carry so much weight. The kohl made his eyes look larger, darker, wounded, the midnight blue beneath it matching the stone in his ear. The tinted lips drew attention to his mouth in ways he understood all too well.
He looked expensive. He looked cultivated. He looked exactly like what ten years of grooming had created.
At seven o'clock exactly, the door opened.
Danzo stood in the doorway, dressed for dinner in a navy suit that matched Sasuke's midnight silk. Deliberate. Coordinated. His eyes traveled over Sasuke slowly, approving what he saw.
"Beautiful," he said. "Stand up. Let me see you."
Sasuke rose. Turned when Danzo's finger made a small circle in the air. Let himself be examined from every angle.
"Perfect." Danzo extended his hand. "Come. Dinner is ready."
Sasuke took the offered hand. Let himself be led down the hallway, down the stairs, toward the dining room where the performance would continue.
The doll was ready to perform.
THAT NIGHT
The dining room stretched too large for three people.
Sasuke sat at Danzo's right, the evening's costume doing exactly what it had been designed to do. Draw Danzo's eye. Please him. Remind him with every glance exactly what his patience had purchased.
Across the table, Naruto sat at Danzo's left. Yellow sapphire catching candlelight. His posture was rigid, controlled, but Sasuke caught him watching when Danzo's attention was elsewhere. Brief glances that carried what looked almost like pain.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Naruto looked away first, jaw tight.
The food sat on Sasuke's plate, artfully arranged and completely unappetizing. His stomach turned at the sight of it. Rich sauces, delicate portions, the kind of meal people paid fortunes for. To Sasuke, it looked like an obstacle course.
He took a small bite. Forced his throat to swallow. His stomach clenched, rejecting, but he made himself take another. And another. Each one a small war between his body and his will.
Danzo was watching. He was always watching.
"You're not eating." The words were casual, but his eyes were cold.
"I apologize, sir." Sasuke made himself take a larger bite. It sat in his mouth like sawdust. He struggled to swallow, throat working against the rebellion. "The travel has left me unsettled."
"That's understandable." Danzo's hand found his thigh under the table. Not comforting. Claiming. "But you need to maintain your figure." He leaned closer, voice dropping to something intimate and chilling. "I didn't invest ten years in a skeleton, Sasuke. I invested in something beautiful. Don't make me regret that investment."
The threat lurked beneath the pleasant tone. Sasuke heard it clearly.
"Yes, sir. I understand."
Across the table, Naruto's hand tightened on his knife. Mine. Don't. The words weren't thoughts. They were instinct, animal and absolute, clawing up his spine before he could stop them.
He ate. Bite by bite. Each swallow a battle. His stomach churned but he kept going, kept forcing food past lips that wanted to stay closed, down a throat that wanted to reject everything.
Across the table, Naruto's fork had stopped moving. He was staring at his plate with fixed intensity, but Sasuke could see the tension in his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip on his knife.
Sasuke didn't understand why.
He filed the observation away and kept eating.
When dinner ended, Danzo dismissed Naruto to handle gang business. Sasuke was sent to his room.
To wait.
That was always the word they used. As if what came next was natural. As if it was something that simply happened, like weather or gravity, rather than something done to him.
Sasuke returned to his room. Sat in the chair by the window. Picked up the book on French impressionism and stared at pages that blurred together, meaningless, while his mind counted the minutes until the knock would come.
Outside, the last light faded from the sky. The gardens disappeared into shadow. Somewhere beyond the walls, the city lived and breathed and moved, full of people who had never waited for a knock that meant this.
He thought about arctic terns. Fourteen thousand miles. Chasing summer. Never experiencing winter.
The knock came at eleven.
A staff member in the doorway, eyes averted, wordless as instructed. A gesture toward the hallway.
Sasuke stood. Smoothed his clothing. Followed.
The walk was short. Just down the corridor, around the corner, to the master suite at the end of the hall. The staff member stopped at the door, gestured once, and retreated without looking back.
Sasuke stood alone in the hallway for a moment. The door to Danzo's room stood open. Warm light spilled out, inviting, a predator's welcome.
He stepped inside and heard the door close behind him. The lock clicked, final and absolute.
Danzo sat in a chair by the fireplace, still dressed, a glass of wine in his hand. He looked up when Sasuke entered. Smiled.
"There you are." He set the wine aside and settled back in his chair, one hand resting on the arm, the other gesturing lazily toward the open space before him. "Dance for me tonight."
Debussy's "Clair de Lune" drifted from speakers hidden somewhere in the walls. The first notes hung in the air, delicate and familiar. Sasuke had played this piece a hundred times. Now his body would perform to it instead.
His feet found the position before he'd decided to move. Hands rising, palms open, the opening stance Orochimaru had drilled into him until it lived in his muscles.
Danzo's scent filled the room, dark and commanding, and Sasuke's training responded the way it always did. Muscles loosening. Resistance draining away. His body knew this dance, had rehearsed it a thousand times in Orochimaru's training rooms, and now performed it without conscious thought.
This wasn't seduction. This was display. Slow and deliberate, every movement designed to remind Danzo exactly what he possessed. Sasuke's hands traveled his own body as he moved, trailing down his chest, his hips. His fingers found the first button of his shirt. Worked it open. Then the next. And the next. Each one a small surrender his hands performed while his mind began to drift.
The shirt slipped from his shoulders. His hips swayed. His eyes stayed fixed on Danzo, because that was what he'd been taught. Make them feel like the center of the world. Make them feel worshipped.
But his mind was already leaving.
Not to numbers this time. Tonight, his mind went to the birds.
Arctic terns. White wings against endless sky. He imagined himself among them, small and light, bones hollow like theirs, built for nothing but flight. The wind catching his feathers as he rose, higher and higher, until the room below was just a speck, until the hands that would touch him couldn't reach, until he was nothing but movement and air and the endless pull toward summer.
Fourteen thousand miles. Pole to pole. Never landing long enough to be caught.
His body continued the dance. His trousers pooled at his feet. He stood before Danzo, bare and beautiful, still moving to music he could no longer hear.
But Sasuke was gone. Sasuke was flying.
Somewhere over an ocean he'd never seen, wings spread wide, chasing a sun that never set.
The doll performed. The boy flew.
And the distance between them grew wider with every mile.
---
On the third floor, above where his mate was being used, Naruto's hands fisted in his sheets so hard his knuckles ached.
His Alpha was howling, screaming inside his skull with a pain that felt like being torn apart from the inside. His mate was somewhere below. Being touched. Being used. The bond trying to form carried just enough awareness that his Alpha understood what was happening in Danzo's suite. Every cell in him was crying out against it.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but lie there and feel his Alpha shatter against the cage of his own helplessness.
Move. Fight. Kill. PROTECT HIM.
The instincts battered at him, relentless, and he had to physically hold himself down to keep from running. His muscles burned with the effort of staying still. His jaw ached from clenching. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he fought his own body, his own nature, everything in him that demanded he save his mate.
But he couldn't.
Because defiance meant death. Not for him. For Shikamaru. For Kiba. For Sakura and Ino and Rock Lee. Everyone who depended on him, everyone who trusted him, everyone Danzo would execute without hesitation if Naruto stepped out of line.
The faces flashed through his mind. His crew. His family, the only one he had left since Kurama died.
He couldn't sacrifice them. Had to find a way to live with this.
But he couldn't stay here either.
The Alpha's howling was getting louder, the pain more unbearable with each passing second. If he stayed in this room, he was going to break. Going to do something that got people killed.
Naruto threw off the sheets and grabbed his jacket.
The mansion's back stairs led down to the garage, then out to the grounds where the crew had their quarters. He moved fast, not letting himself think, just putting distance between himself and the floor where his mate was being used by another man.
Shikamaru's door was unlocked. It always was.
Naruto pushed inside without knocking. Shikamaru was sprawled on his couch, game controller in hand, some racing game paused on the TV. He took one look at Naruto's face and sat up.
"You look like hell."
"I can't be in there." Naruto's voice came out wrecked. "I can feel it, Shikamaru. My Alpha is going insane and I can't do anything and if I stay in that room I'm going to..." He broke off, hands shaking.
Shikamaru didn't push. Just shifted over on the couch and picked up a second controller.
"Sit down. Play something. Don't think."
Naruto sat. Took the controller with trembling hands. On screen, cartoon cars lined up at a starting line, bright and stupid and meaningless.
They played in silence for a while. Shikamaru won every race because Naruto couldn't focus, couldn't see the screen through the haze of pain and rage, but it didn't matter. The mindless motion of his thumbs on the buttons gave him something to do besides break apart.
Around midnight, Naruto spoke again. "Tomorrow in the library. He invited me back."
Shikamaru's hands paused on the controller. "That's dangerous."
"I know."
"I mean it, Naruto. Danzo's not stupid. If he sees you two getting close, if he figures out what you are to each other..."
"I know." Naruto's voice cracked. "But I can't stay away. I tried. I can't."
Shikamaru studied him for a long moment. Whatever he saw made him exhale slowly, resignation settling into his expression.
"Then be careful. Be so goddamn careful it hurts."
"I will."
They played until dawn. Until Naruto's hands stopped shaking. Until his Alpha's howling had faded to a low, constant ache that he could almost ignore.
Tomorrow. The library. One hour where they could be people instead of possessions.
Naruto knew Shikamaru was right. Knew the danger. Knew that every moment he spent with Sasuke was a risk that could get them all killed.
But Sasuke had invited him back. Had trembled while asking. Had let something show through the careful blankness.
And Naruto couldn't stay away.
Even if it destroyed everything.
CHAPTER 3 TEASER:
The party. Eighty guests. The matched set on full display. And a moment alone in a hallway that changes everything.
Notes:
Thank you in advance for your subscribes, bookmarks, kudos and comments. They mean the world to me 💕
And please let me know your thoughts. I would love to know what you think. 💕💕
Note, this is not beta read so if you notice an error let me know and I will fix it.
Chapter 3: The Party
Summary:
Three weeks in captivity, and the party changes everything. Sasuke is collared, leashed, and displayed as Danzo's pet while Naruto watches helplessly from across the room. A stolen moment in a hallway. A word that rewrites everything: belonging. And in the darkness that follows, both of them discover that the other has become the only thing keeping them breathing.
Notes:
Hello everyone 💕
This chapter was intense to write. The party, the collar, that hallway moment... I hope it hit the way I intended. These boys are going through hell but they're finding each other in the middle of it.
Thank you in advance for your subscribes, bookmarks, kudos and comments. They mean the world to me
And please let me know your thoughts. I would love to know what you think. 💕 💕Note: this is not beta read so if you notice an error let me know and I will fix it.
Chapter Text
THE ROUTINE ESTABLISHED
It took three weeks to learn every corner of his cage.
Mornings belonged to Danzo's table. Sasuke in blue, always blue, seated at his right hand while staff served breakfast and Naruto sat across from them pretending to read reports. The food arrived on schedule: rich, high in calories and carefully portioned. A new diet designed by a nutritionist Danzo had consulted after the first week, when Sasuke's weight dropped despite his efforts to force meals down.
Now every bite was monitored. Staff reported back. The chef prepared exactly what Danzo specified, and Sasuke ate it because the alternative was losing the only hour that mattered.
"Your library privilege continues as long as you cooperate," Danzo had said, fingers tracing Sasuke's jaw while his breakfast sat untouched. "Eat. Or I'll find other uses for that time."
So Sasuke ate. Swallowed against every signal his body sent him. Let the rich sauces and heavy proteins sit in his stomach while Danzo smiled approval.
Afternoons he was decoration. Piano practice while Danzo worked. Sitting in the study with approved books while business associates came and went. Being looked at, assessed, admired. Sometimes Danzo pulled him onto his lap during meetings, a living doll to stroke while discussing shipments and territories.
Nights he was the doll who performed. It always ended the same way. The knock. The walk. The locked door.
But five o'clock. Five o'clock was his.
Everything else revolved around the library. One hour where the doll could set itself aside. One hour where someone sat across from him and asked nothing except his company.
Naruto came every day.
They talked about small things at first. Arctic terns and their impossible migrations. The way the light changed in the garden through the windows. Books Sasuke was reading, questions Naruto asked about Japan.
But somewhere in the second week, the conversations had shifted. Become something else. Something Sasuke didn't have a name for.
Yesterday, they'd been sitting in the window seat together, close enough that Sasuke could catch Naruto's scent beneath the soap and cotton. Something warm and distinctly Alpha, like summer grass and citrus. His Omega stirred faintly toward it before settling back into stillness. The afternoon light had gone golden, and Naruto had been telling him about food.
"You've seriously never had a Big Mac?"
"I don't know what that is."
Naruto had stared at him like he'd announced he'd never seen the sun. "It's... it's a burger. From McDonald's. Two patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, sesame seed bun." He'd recited it like poetry. "It's disgusting and perfect and costs like four dollars."
"Four dollars." Sasuke had turned the concept over in his mind. The meals he'd been served his entire life cost hundreds. The top restaurants in Tokyo and private chefs who prepared single dishes worth more than most people's weekly groceries. "What does it taste like?"
"Like freedom, honestly." Naruto had laughed, then gone quiet, like he'd surprised himself with the honesty. "I mean. It's greasy. The cheese is definitely not real cheese. But you can just... walk in and buy one. No reservations. No dress code. Nobody watching to make sure you eat it right."
Sasuke had tried to imagine it. Walking into a restaurant alone. Ordering what he wanted. Eating without someone monitoring every bite.
"I'd like to try that," he'd said. "Someday."
"Yeah?" Naruto's voice had softened. "When we get out of here, I'll buy you one. First thing."
When, not if. Sasuke said nothing. Let himself believe it, just for a moment.
"What's your favorite food?" Naruto had asked. "If you could eat anything."
The question had stumped him. Favorite implied preference. Preference implied choice. Sasuke had spent seventeen years eating what was put in front of him, prepared by people who were told what he should want.
"I don't know," he'd admitted. "I've never chosen."
Naruto didn't look at him with pity. That was the thing about him. He just nodded, like the answer made sense, and said, "Then we'll figure it out. Try everything until something's yours."
Sasuke thought about that. The idea of trying things. Of discovering what he liked rather than being told.
"I think it will be a Big Mac."
Naruto had smiled at that. A real smile, not the guarded one he wore at Danzo's table. "Yeah?"
"Something that tastes like freedom." Sasuke had looked out the window at the garden he wasn't allowed to walk through alone. "I think I'd like that."
Until something's yours. The words stayed with Sasuke long after the library hour ended. The idea that something could belong to him. That he could have preferences, opinions. That he might be more than what he'd been made into.
Three weeks of this. Three weeks of cages and libraries and Naruto looking at him like he was something more than porcelain.
Tonight would be different.
Tonight there was a party.
The library hour had ended thirty minutes ago. Naruto's promise of tomorrow still warm in his ears. Now the staff were here to transform him into something else entirely.
PREPARATION
The staff arrived earlier than usual.
Four of them instead of two, carrying garment bags and cases Sasuke hadn't seen before. Tonight required more than usual.
Sasuke stood where directed and let them work. The shower came first, then the preparations.
An extravagant kimono emerged from its garment bag. Layered silks in deep blue that faded to midnight at the hem, the gradient so seamless it looked like dusk settling into night. Silver thread embroidered across the fabric in patterns that blazed like scattered stars when the light caught them. The outer robe was sheer in places, midnight gauze over darker silk beneath. Traditional enough to emphasize his Japanese heritage. Modern enough to display him as something not quite human. The obi cinched his waist until it ached. The sleeves flowed past his fingertips, trailing like wings when he moved.
His hair came next. Oils that made it gleam like black water, then pinned back on one side with a silver comb shaped like cherry blossoms. Gold threads wove through the dark strands on the other side. The style left his neck exposed, vulnerable, drawing the eye toward the sapphire that marked him as owned.
The makeup transformed him further. Kohl extended at the corners, midnight blue shadow blending like bruises, lips tinted deep wine. Something shimmering along his cheekbones made him look less real. Less like a person.
Then the final piece.
One of the staff members opened a velvet box. Inside, nestled against black silk, lay a collar. Delicate gold filigree, designed to look like jewelry. A thin chain attached to a small loop at the front, coiled beside it like a sleeping snake.
A collar. The word arrived without emotion attached.
The staff member fastened it around his throat. The metal sat cold against his pulse point, warming slowly to his skin. Not tight enough to choke but tight enough to remind him with every swallow exactly what he was. The chain clipped to the collar's loop with a soft click.
Sasuke stared at his reflection.
Something beautiful but not quite human stared back. The collar sat at his throat like it belonged there, gold against pale skin, beautiful and terrible. A pet. That's what it made him. Something to be led.
The door opened. Danzo stood in the threshold, dressed in a navy suit with gold accents. His eyes traveled over Sasuke slowly, lingering on the collar, and his smile widened.
"Perfect." He crossed the room and lifted the end of the chain. Wound it once around his hand and tugged.
Sasuke's body moved toward him automatically.
"Come, darling. Let's show everyone what's mine."
Sasuke followed the pull of the chain down the corridor, silk whispering with every step, and went nowhere inside himself before the night had even begun.
THE PARTY (SASUKE'S EXPERIENCE)
The mansion had transformed.
Sasuke barely recognized the space he'd moved through for three weeks. The cold marble halls now glowed with warm light from hundreds of candles. Flowers cascaded from every surface, white and gold arrangements. Staff in crisp uniforms circulated with champagne flutes and delicate appetizers. A string quartet played in the main hall, classical pieces drifting through rooms crowded with guests.
Eighty people. Maybe more. Expensive suits and designer gowns. The kind of wealth that didn't need to announce itself but did anyway.
Danzo kept him close. The chain wrapped around his wrist, a constant tether.
Every few steps, a tug. Sasuke's attention drifting toward the string quartet, and the chain yanked him back, hard enough to make his neck sting. His posture slipping by a fraction of an inch, and the chain pulled taut, the collar biting into his throat until he straightened. Not gentle. Corrections delivered with enough force to leave marks beneath the gold.
Two, three, five, seven.
Sasuke counted primes in his head while his body was steered through clusters of guests. The collar pressed against his pulse. The chain clinked softly with every step. Eyes followed him everywhere, and he saw none of them, because the numbers were the only thing keeping him from shattering. Silk clung to the sweat at the small of his back. Danzo's scent thick in his throat.
Eleven, thirteen, seventeen.
A circle of men in suits. Danzo's hand tight on the chain. Words floating past him that he didn't need to hear because they were always the same. Mouths moving, eyes traveling over him, sound gone distant. Muffled. Like hearing conversation through water.
"Sasuke, my darling. Demonstrate."
Italian first. Sasuke's lips parted and the verses emerged, Petrarch flowing from memory with perfect pronunciation. Something about beauty and eternity and desire. His voice carried the words while his mind flew somewhere else. Arctic terns over endless ocean. White wings against blue sky.
Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine.
Mandarin next. Then Japanese. Each language delivered on command, and Sasuke watched himself perform from somewhere near the ceiling, detached, floating, safe.
The chain jerked. His body stumbled forward half a step before catching itself.
Thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one.
The evening blurred. More introductions. More hungry eyes. One man reached toward his face and Danzo stepped between them, blocking the touch, then demonstrated his own. Fingers traced along Sasuke's cheekbone, down his jaw, across his lower lip. The chain tightening with each movement, reminding everyone watching exactly who held the other end.
Forty-three, forty-seven, fifty-three.
Danzo unclipped the chain. The sudden absence of tension made Sasuke sway. Three hours of constant pulling, constant correction, and now nothing. The collar remained, gold warming against raw skin, but his body didn't know what to do without the leash.
"Your performance, darling."
The violin waited on its stand.
Sasuke crossed to it, aware of Danzo's eyes following him, aware that the unclipped chain was still wound around his master's hand. Ready to be reattached. His neck was raw where the collar had bitten in. His hands would make music now because his hands, like his voice, like his body when it danced in locked rooms, were instruments themselves. Tools to be played.
The instrument fit into his grip. He'd played this piece on piano a hundred times. Now his fingers would perform it on strings, another version of the same surrender.
The first notes hung in the air. Debussy's moonlight rendered in a new voice. Guests gathered in the doorway to watch, champagne forgotten, conversations paused.
Sasuke let his hands play from memory while his mind flew. Fourteen thousand miles. Pole to pole. Wings that never tired. Summer that never ended.
When the final note faded, applause filled the room.
Danzo crossed to him immediately. The chain reattached with a soft click. His hands took Sasuke's face, tilting it up, displaying it to the watching crowd.
The kiss happened in front of everyone.
Sasuke's lips softened the way they'd been trained. Yielding. Devoted. Performing adoration while Danzo's hand curled around the back of his neck, the chain pressing cold between their bodies.
Fifty-nine, sixty-one, sixty-seven.
When Danzo released him, the applause had changed. Murmurs ran through the crowd. Appreciation for the display. For the control. For the beautiful creature who kissed his master like worship.
Seventy-one, seventy-three, seventy-nine.
Birds over ocean. Anywhere but here.
Danzo steered him toward a cluster of important guests near the bar, the chain tight and visible. A gesture across the room. A command.
Naruto appeared at Danzo's other side within seconds. Dark suit in complementary shades, navy fabric with gold accents at the lapels and cuffs. The yellow sapphire in his ear catching the same candlelight as Sasuke's blue. Coordinated and deliberate.
Naruto's eyes dropped to the collar. To the chain in Danzo's hand. Something fractured behind his expression before he shut it down.
Danzo smiled. He tugged the chain, pulling Sasuke flush against his side.
The guests evaluated them. Comparing. The handsome blonde Alpha, all coiled danger and barely contained violence. The exquisite dark Omega, all silk and ethereal grace.
Danzo spoke about business. About problems resolved. About loyalty earned through years of careful cultivation. Sasuke heard none of it. The numbers had gone quiet. The birds had stopped flying.
Because his eyes had found Naruto.
Not the weapon standing at attention. The person underneath. The one who sat in the library and asked about favorite foods. The one who promised to buy him a Big Mac when they got out.
Eighty-three, eighty... eighty...
What came after eighty-three?
The numbers scattered. Sasuke grasped for them and they slipped away. His mind, usually so reliable in its retreat, stuttered and stalled.
And something else happened. Something in the hollow space beneath his ribs. A pull, warm and strange, toward the blonde standing three feet away. His Omega stirred again beneath the layers of suppressants and conditioning. Stronger this time.
Naruto's eyes met his.
The pull intensified. Sasuke's Omega straining toward Naruto like a plant toward sunlight, and he didn't understand, couldn't understand, why his body was doing this, why this person made everything go quiet and loud at the same time.
Two, three, five. Start over. Two, three, five, seven.
Sasuke forced himself to look away. His heart beat strange and uneven beneath the layers of silk. The collar pressed against his racing pulse.
He didn't understand why this kept happening.
THE PARTY (NARUTO'S EXPERIENCE)
Naruto had been watching for hours.
Posted near the bar with Shikamaru, playing security, pretending his attention was on the room and not on one person moving through it. The suit Danzo had chosen for him matched perfectly. Navy fabric, gold accents at the lapels. Coordinated with the kimono Sasuke wore like they were two halves of the same display.
Kiba stood a few feet away, nursing a drink he wasn't actually drinking, eyes scanning the crowd. Rock Lee was stationed near the main entrance, posture military-straight even in his formal suit. Sakura and Ino moved through the party in server uniforms, circulating with trays, gathering intelligence the way they'd been trained.
The whole crew was here. All of them watching. None of them able to do anything.
But they were here. And that meant something.
Kiba caught Naruto's eye and raised an eyebrow. You okay?
No. But what else was new.
Because he couldn't stop looking at Sasuke. Couldn't stop looking at what they'd done to him.
The collar.
The goddamn collar around his mate's throat, gold and delicate and designed to look like jewelry, but Naruto saw it for what it was. A chain attached to it, wrapped around Danzo's hand, and every few steps the bastard yanked it. Not gentle tugs. Corrections that made Sasuke's whole body jerk. Reminders delivered with enough force to leave marks.
Like Sasuke was a dog being trained to heel.
The champagne glass shook in his hand. His fingers tightened around it. Tighter. The stem cracked. Then the whole thing shattered.
Glass and champagne scattered across the marble floor. His hand was bleeding, a shard embedded in his palm, and he hadn't felt it break. Hadn't felt anything except the rage building in his skull like a pressure that needed to explode.
"Naruto." Shikamaru's voice, sharp and low. His hand closed around Naruto's wrist, pulling it down, hiding the damage. "Breathe."
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only watch as Danzo paraded his mate through the crowd, yanking the chain hard enough that Sasuke stumbled, displaying the level of control he commanded over the beautiful creature at the end of his leash.
Kiba appeared with a napkin, wrapping it around Naruto's bleeding hand without a word. Rock Lee materialized behind them, a wall of solidarity.
"I have never seen something so dishonorable," Rock Lee said, voice barely audible. "To treat another person this way."
"I know." Naruto's voice came out wrecked. "I know."
The kimono turned Sasuke into something not quite human. All flowing silk and silver embroidery and that face, that impossible face, empty and beautiful and wrong. The makeup made him look like something else entirely. Not the boy who talked about Big Macs in library windows. This was wrong. All of it was wrong.
And underneath it, buried so deep most people would never notice, winter rain. The scent cutting through the crowd, through the perfume and cologne and catered food. Stronger than it had been three weeks ago. More real.
His mate was right there. Thirty feet away. Collared and leashed and being paraded like livestock.
The violin performance started. Naruto watched Sasuke cross to the instrument, watched him sway when the chain released like his body didn't know how to move without being pulled. Watched him raise the bow and begin to play.
Clair de Lune. Technically flawless but emotionally gone.
Sakura passed close, tray balanced on one hand. Her face was carefully blank, but her eyes burned. "This is sickening," she breathed, barely moving her lips. "He's just a kid."
"I know."
"If you need us. Whatever you need." She moved on before anyone could notice her pause, but her words stayed behind.
The music ended. Applause filled the room.
And Danzo crossed to Sasuke, reattached the chain with a click that Naruto heard across the room, took his face in both hands, and kissed him.
Naruto stopped seeing anything except Danzo's filthy mouth on his mate.
Shikamaru's hand clamped down on his shoulder. Kiba pressed closer on his other side. Rock Lee's hand found his back. All of them holding him in place while he watched Danzo kiss Sasuke in front of eighty people. The chain between their bodies. The guests murmuring appreciation.
"Hold it together." Shikamaru's voice was urgent. "For five more seconds. Then ten more. Then ten more after that. That's how you survive this."
A gesture from across the room. Danzo's summons.
Naruto's legs didn't want to move. Every muscle locked up, fighting the command. But he forced himself forward. One step. Another. Crossing to stand beside them, napkin pressed tight against his bleeding palm. The collection on display. Sasuke in silk with a chain at his throat, Naruto in his matching suit, both wearing sapphires that marked them as belonging to the same man.
Up close, the collar was worse. He could see how tight it sat against Sasuke's throat. Every time Sasuke swallowed, his throat moved against the metal. Marks that would bruise by morning.
Danzo touched the yellow stone in Naruto's ear, casual and owning.
Naruto kept his face blank. Hands at his sides, the napkin hidden in his fist. Eyes forward. He couldn't look at Sasuke. Couldn't look at the collar. The chain. The raw skin beneath the gold. If he looked, everyone would see. So he didn't look.
But he could smell him. Winter rain and something underneath that made every cell in his body scream. His Alpha howling, straining, demanding he do something, anything, to free his mate from the gold links wrapped around another man's hand.
The speech ended. The guests dispersed. Naruto returned to his post by the bar where the crew had regrouped. Shikamaru with a fresh napkin for his hand. Kiba with grim eyes. Ino passing close enough to squeeze his shoulder before continuing her circuit of the room.
"How much longer?" Naruto's voice came out rough.
"Few more hours." Shikamaru wrapped the napkin tighter around the cut on Naruto's palm. "You can make it."
"Can I?"
Shikamaru met his eyes. Whatever he saw there, he didn't question. Just nodded once, slow.
"You don't have a choice."
THE HALLWAY
Past midnight, Sasuke was finally alone.
Danzo unclipped the chain from the collar's loop, and the absence of tension was disorienting. Hours of constant pulling, constant correction, constant reminder of who controlled his movement. Now the chain was gone, though the collar remained, warm metal pressing against the raw skin of his throat.
"Use the restroom," Danzo said, winding the chain around his hand for safekeeping. "Five minutes. Don't make me come looking for you."
Sasuke walked until he found an empty corridor, dim and quiet and far from the noise of the party. Pressed his back against the wall. Closed his eyes. Let himself breathe for the first time in hours. One tear escaped before he could stop it, trailing warm down his cheek.
The kimono weighed a thousand pounds. Silk and silver and gold thread and the expectations of everyone who had looked at him tonight. The collar pressed against his throat where the skin was sore and raw. His feet ached. His face cramped from holding the serene expression that meant nothing could touch him.
But for five minutes, no one was holding the other end of his leash.
Footsteps in the corridor.
Sasuke's eyes opened.
Naruto stood at the end of the hall, hovering in shadow like he wasn't sure he should be there. For a moment he didn't move, and Sasuke thought he might turn back. Then he stepped forward.
His suit was slightly rumpled now, the careful coordination disheveled by hours of playing security. The yellow sapphire caught dim light from a wall sconce. There was a napkin wrapped around one of his hands, spotted with red.
His eyes went to Sasuke's throat. To the collar still fastened there. To the raw skin visible above the gold.
They shouldn't be here. Both of them understood it without speaking. If anyone saw them alone together, if Danzo found out, if suspicion landed in the wrong direction.
But Naruto didn't leave. And Sasuke didn't tell him to go.
"You okay?"
"Fine."
The lie hung between them. Neither pretended to believe it.
Naruto moved closer, still keeping distance, still giving him space. Not crowding. Not demanding. The way he always was in the library.
"That was rough. Being paraded like that." His eyes flickered to the collar again. "Being led around like..."
He didn't finish. Didn't need to.
"It's what I'm for." Sasuke's voice came out flat. "Looking pretty. Performing on command. Being everything he desires."
"You're more than that."
Silence. The words landed somewhere deep, in a place Sasuke didn't have names for. A place the collar couldn't touch.
"Not to him."
"To me."
Sasuke's breath caught. His eyes found Naruto's face in the dim light. The expression there was raw, unguarded in a way Naruto never allowed at Danzo's table or during the party or anywhere they might be observed.
Something passed between them. Something Sasuke couldn't identify but couldn't look away from either.
And he realized he wasn't counting.
A feeling surfaced, unfamiliar and half-forgotten. Like being wrapped in something warm. Like his mother's arms before everything ended.
Belonging. The word came from somewhere he'd buried at seven years old.
It was always like this with Naruto. In the library, he never reached for the numbers. Never needed them. His mind stayed with him in a way it couldn't anywhere else. And now, standing in this dim hallway with Danzo's collar still warm against his throat, the numbers had gone silent again. Not because he'd escaped into them. Because he didn't need to escape at all.
He was here. In this hallway. With this person. Aware of his own heartbeat and the weight of his kimono and the ache in his throat and the warmth spreading through him where there was usually only emptiness.
A dangerous thing, to feel safe with someone in this house.
But underneath the terror, something else. The same pull from earlier. His Omega reaching toward Naruto, straining against years of suppression, recognizing something his mind couldn't name.
In the library, this made sense. The library was safe. The library was theirs.
Here, in a dim hallway with five minutes of borrowed freedom, it made no sense at all.
Naruto's hand moved. Started to reach toward him. Stopped halfway. Curled into a fist at his side.
The almost-touch hung in the air between them, heavy with everything they couldn't have.
"The library." Naruto's voice came out rough. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
Footsteps echoed from somewhere around the corner. They separated instantly, Sasuke pressing back against the wall, Naruto retreating toward the far end of the corridor. By the time a staff member appeared, they were twenty feet apart. Strangers who happened to be in the same hallway.
Sasuke followed the staff member back to the party. Found Danzo. Stood still while the chain was clipped back onto his collar, the soft click settling something cold in his stomach.
The doll clicked back into place.
But underneath, held somewhere the collar couldn't reach, somewhere the chain couldn't pull away: You're more than that. To me.
AFTER
The last guests left around two in the morning.
Sasuke stood at Danzo's side in the grand foyer as expensive cars pulled away into darkness.
He'd barely touched food all night. Small bites for appearance, plates abandoned when he could. Danzo had noticed. Danzo always noticed. Tomorrow there would be consequences.
But that was tomorrow's problem.
"Come, darling." Danzo's hand found the small of his back, the chain tightening slightly. "You were magnificent tonight. Time for my reward."
The word meant what it always meant. His body braced accordingly.
He let himself be led toward the stairs, toward the master suite, toward the night's final performance. Silk trailing behind him. The chain pulling him forward.
Across the foyer, Naruto stood frozen. Kiba and Rock Lee flanked him. Shikamaru stood slightly apart, watching.
Naruto's face showed nothing.
His eyes said everything. They tracked the chain. The collar. The way Sasuke moved at the end of his tether, following where he was led.
Sasuke allowed himself one glance before following Danzo up the stairs. Brief. Barely a heartbeat. Then the corner swallowed him.
The second Sasuke disappeared up the stairs, Shikamaru grabbed Naruto's arm.
"We're leaving."
"What?"
"Beer run. Supply pickup. I don't care what we call it." Shikamaru was already steering him toward the back entrance. "You're not staying in this building tonight."
Kiba fell into step beside them. Rock Lee materialized at his other shoulder. The crew closed ranks, moving as a unit toward the garage.
"There's a warehouse situation in Queens," Kiba said. "Some idiots trying to skim off our shipments. We could handle that."
"Perfect." Shikamaru pushed open the door to the garage. "Something that needs hitting."
Naruto didn't argue. Couldn't argue. Because Shikamaru was right. If he stayed here, where his mate was being touched by another man, still wearing that goddamn collar, still bound even without the chain, he would break. Would do something that got people killed.
They piled into one of Danzo's SUVs. Kiba drove. Rock Lee rode shotgun. Shikamaru sat in the back with Naruto, saying nothing, existing in the same space.
The city blurred past. Neon and shadow. Naruto pressed his forehead against the cold window and let his Alpha howl into the glass where no one could hear it.
The warehouse in Queens was cold and dark and exactly what Naruto needed.
Two men tied to chairs. Idiots who'd been skimming shipments, thinking no one would notice. Normally Shikamaru handled the interrogations. Tonight, Naruto stepped forward.
He looked at the men in the chairs and saw Danzo. Tugging the chain. Kissing his mate in front of eighty people. Touching him like he owned him. Because he did. Fucking owned them both.
"I've got this."
Shikamaru's eyes narrowed but he stepped back. The crew formed a loose circle. Watching. Understanding without being told that their leader needed something to hit.
Naruto's fist connected with the first man's jaw. The impact sang through his knuckles, sharp and satisfying. Again. And again. Everything he'd been choking on for hours.
The man's head snapped back. Blood sprayed. Naruto kept going.
A scream tore out of him. Raw. Animal. His Alpha finally given voice.
"Naruto." Shikamaru's voice, distant.
Another hit. Another. The man had stopped making sounds.
"Naruto." Closer now. A hand on his shoulder. "That's enough. He's done."
Naruto's fist froze mid-swing. His chest heaved. Blood dripped from his knuckles onto the concrete floor. The man in the chair was unconscious, face a mess of blood.
He stepped back. His hands were shaking.
Kiba handed him a rag without a word.
Nobody asked what had gotten into him. Nobody needed to.
Afterward, they sat on the hood of the SUV in a parking lot overlooking the river. Kiba had produced beers from somewhere. The city lights reflected off the water in smears of color.
"You gonna be okay?" Kiba asked.
"No."
"Fair enough." Kiba took a long drink. "That was... I've never seen anything like that. The collar. The leash. The way Danzo was yanking him around. Making him perform and shit." He shook his head. "That kid's been through hell."
"Still going through it," Rock Lee said quietly.
Naruto stared at the water. The cut on his palm had reopened, blood dripping slow and steady onto the hood of the SUV. He didn't care.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Five o'clock. The library."
Nobody asked what that meant. They sat with him until the sky started to lighten, and the howling in his blood faded to something he could almost ignore.
----
In the master suite, the kimono pooled on the floor. The costume was gone. The performance wasn't.
The collar stayed on. Danzo hadn't removed it. Wouldn't remove it until morning, maybe longer. A reminder even in the dark of who Sasuke belonged to.
Two, three, five, seven.
The numbers stuttered. Scattered like startled birds.
Sasuke grasped for them and they slipped away. His mind, usually so reliable in its retreat, refused to cooperate. The ceiling stayed solid above him. The sheets stayed real beneath him. Danzo's hands stayed present on his skin.
Eleven, thirteen...
Gone.
His lungs stopped working. His fingers dug into the sheets, looking for something to hold onto, and there was nothing. He was here. He was trapped here.
Every sensation he usually blocked out pressed in at once. The weight above him. The hands. The collar still tight against his throat.
You're more than that.
Naruto's voice. Not here, not real, but clear as if he stood beside the bed.
To me.
Sasuke held onto the words. Let them pull him up, out, away. Not to numbers this time. Not to birds.
To the library. Golden afternoon light. Summer grass and citrus. A voice asking about favorite foods. A promise of Big Macs and freedom and when we get out of here.
His body stayed in the bed. But the rest of him was with Naruto.
Somewhere safe. Somewhere he belonged.
Tomorrow. Five o'clock.
He held onto that and let everything else disappear.
Somewhere across the river, Naruto watched the sun come up.
Tomorrow. Five o'clock.
It was the only thing keeping either of them breathing.
CHAPTER 4 TEASER:
The library deepens. Kurama. Cherry blossoms. A bucket list of impossible dreams. And an almost-kiss that neither of them can take back.
Chapter 4: Learning the Cage
Summary:
A medical examination reveals the full scope of Danzo's plans. The library becomes a refuge where secrets are exchanged and impossible dreams take shape. But when Sasuke reaches for his usual escapes and finds them gone, he discovers that needing someone can be the most dangerous thing of all.
Notes:
Hello everyone 💕
I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Thank you for reading. Your comments and kudos mean everything. 💕💕
Note: This is not beta read, so if you notice any errors please let me know and I'll fix them.
Chapter Text
THE EXAMINATION
Three days after the party, the examination room was cold. That morning, Danzo had finally removed the collar. The skin beneath was still raw, still tender when Sasuke swallowed.
Sasuke sat on a padded table in a thin medical gown, bare feet hanging above tile that looked like it belonged in a hospital. The room itself was tucked away in a wing of the mansion he hadn't known existed. Clinical, sterile, nothing like the rest of the house with its marble and velvet and carefully curated beauty.
A woman in a white coat stood nearby, clipboard in hand, speaking to Danzo in low tones. Neither of them looked at Sasuke. Neither of them spoke to him directly.
"His weight is down 6 pounds since arrival." The woman flipped through pages. "Despite the enriched meal plan."
"He's eating but not gaining." Danzo's voice carried that edge Sasuke had learned to recognize as displeasure wrapped in calm. "He arrived thin and he's getting thinner."
"The weight loss could be stress related. New environment, adjustment period. "She made a note. We can add more to his meals. Heavier dishes, supplements, a shake between meals."
"Whatever it takes." Danzo crossed his legs, settling deeper into the chair positioned to observe. "I've waited ten years for him to be ready. I won't have malnutrition compromising his fertility."
Fertility. Another word for what he existed to provide.
"About that." The woman pulled out a different form. "His hormone levels are stable on the current suppressant dosage. When did you want to begin tapering?"
"Soon. Within the month, once we get his weight up."
"I'd recommend a gradual reduction. Three weeks minimum to avoid shocking his system." She was still talking to Danzo, still not looking at Sasuke. "Once his natural cycle resumes, we can monitor for optimal windows."
"And conception rates for male omegas?"
"Lower than female omegas, but not significantly. With proper nutrition and timing, there's no reason he can't carry successfully." She glanced at her notes. "Multiple pregnancies are possible, though I'd recommend spacing them. How many were you hoping for?"
"As many as he can safely give me."
Sasuke stared at the far wall. White and empty. Nothing to count.
They discussed his body for another twenty minutes. His bone density. His hip measurements. The supplements that would prepare his system for conception. The timeline for his first heat, which they expected within six weeks of stopping the suppressants entirely.
He was livestock. A broodmare being inspected before breeding season.
Somewhere in his mind, birds tried to take flight. They couldn't find the sky.
"Sasuke."
Danzo's voice pulled him back. Both of them were looking at him now. The woman with clinical detachment. Danzo with hunger barely concealed.
"You heard Dr. Sato. The new regimen starts today. Extra supplements. Heavier meals. You will eat everything placed in front of you." Danzo stood, crossing to where Sasuke sat. His fingers found Sasuke's chin, tilting his face up. "I've been very patient with your difficulties at meals. That patience is ending."
Sasuke said nothing.
"Your library hour continues because I allow it." The grip on his chin tightened. "One more pound lost. One more report of food left on your plate. And we'll find other uses for that time. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good boy." Danzo released him and turned to the door. "Get dressed. Naruto will escort you back."
The door opened. Naruto stood in the hallway, summoned and waiting. His eyes found Sasuke immediately, took in the medical gown, the examination table, the clinical coldness of the room. His jaw tightened before he could stop it.
"Naruto." Danzo gestured him inside. "New instructions regarding Sasuke's meals. As my second, you're at every meal. You'll ensure he eats everything. Every supplement, every shake, every bite. Report any resistance to me directly."
"Yes, sir."
"I've waited ten years for the perfect specimen to breed." Danzo said it casually, adjusting his cuffs. "I won't have anything compromising that investment."
Breed.
Naruto's shoulders went rigid. His hands curled into fists at his sides before forcibly relaxing, and Sasuke watched him force the blankness back over his features while his alpha raged beneath the surface.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Sasuke looked away first.
Danzo left. Dr. Sato gathered her papers and followed. Sasuke was alone with Naruto and the word that hung between them.
"I'll wait outside," Naruto said quietly. "Take your time."
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door mostly closed.
Sasuke dressed slowly. His hands were steady. They had been steady through ten years of this. Through worse than this.
But he could see it now, the full scope of what Danzo wanted. Not just his nights. Not just his body in the ways he'd already given it.
Children. Heirs. Years of pregnancies and births and little dark-haired babies Danzo would raise to be whatever he wanted them to be.
A dynasty built inside him.
Sasuke buttoned his shirt and went to find Naruto.
The Library
Week Four.
The library had become the only place Sasuke could breathe. Afternoon light spilled through tall windows. Sasuke sat in the window seat with a book he wasn't reading, Naruto in the chair across from him. Close enough that Sasuke could catch his scent beneath the soap and clean cotton.
"How long have you been here?" The question came out before Sasuke could stop it. He'd been thinking about the yellow sapphire. The matching mark. "With Danzo."
Naruto's hand went to his ear automatically, pressing the stone. "Twelve years. Since I was seven."
"What happened?"
Silence stretched. Sasuke almost apologized for asking. Then Naruto shifted in his chair, settling back, eyes fixed on a point far beyond the walls.
"My brother raised me. Kurama." The name came out soft. "He was ten years older. Our parents died when I was three. Some kind of accident, I don't really remember. But Kurama, he just... stepped up. Got us an apartment in the Bronx. Ran a small crew to keep us fed."
Sasuke set his book aside. Gave Naruto his full attention.
"He was good at it. The crew stuff. But he had rules. No trafficking. No kids. No hurting people who didn't deserve it." A ghost of a smile crossed Naruto's face. "He taught me to read. Did all the voices when we read together. Made me laugh even when things were bad."
"He sounds kind."
"He was." The smile faded. "Danzo wanted his territory. And he saw something in me, I guess. Alpha potential. Whatever that means to someone like him. He made Kurama an offer. Join or die."
Sasuke already knew how this ended.
"Kurama refused. Said he'd rather lose everything than work for someone who traded in people." Naruto's voice went rough. "They came for us a week later. Middle of the night. Kurama got me out of bed, tried to run. But there were too many of them."
His hands were gripping the arms of the chair now. Knuckles white.
"He threw himself in front of the bullets. Protecting me." Naruto swallowed hard. "His last words were: Run. Keep running. Don't let them catch you."
Sasuke stopped breathing.
"I tried. I was seven. I couldn't run fast enough." Naruto finally looked at him. "Danzo found me hiding three blocks away. Told me he'd take care of me. That I'd be safe."
Neither of them spoke. The room went still around them.
His hands were trembling in his lap and he couldn't make them stop. Deep inside, his omega stirred toward the grief in Naruto's voice, recognizing pain that mirrored its own.
"My mother," he heard himself say. "The night they came for my family. She pushed me into a closet. Told me to hide."
Naruto stopped breathing.
"I could hear them. My father fighting. My brother." The words came out flat. Distant. Like he was reciting facts about someone else. "She stayed outside the closet door. Trying to protect me. And right before they..." He stopped. Started again. "Her last words were: Run, Sasuke. Run."
Both told to run at seven years old. Both couldn't escape. Both rescued by the men who destroyed their families.
"Orochimaru found me afterward." Sasuke's voice was barely audible. "Told me he'd keep me safe. That he had a purpose for me."
"And the purpose was Danzo."
"The purpose was always Danzo."
Neither of them moved. The afternoon light had gone golden, shadows lengthening across the carpet. Somewhere outside, birds called to each other. Free to fly wherever they wanted.
"What was she like?" Naruto asked. "Your mother."
Sasuke had to think. The memories were old, worn away by years of trying not to touch them.
"She had a garden. Cherry blossoms." The image surfaced, hazy but warm. "We would have tea under the trees. Me and my brother Itachi. She'd watch us play cards on the porch and pretend not to notice when Itachi let me win."
"She sounds nice."
"She was."
They sat with that. Two boys who had lost everything at the same age, in the same way, with the same words echoing behind them. Run. Keep running.
Neither had run far enough.
"I'm glad you're here," Naruto said quietly. "I mean. Not glad. This place is hell. But. I'm glad you're here with me."
Sasuke nodded. He didn't trust his voice.
But a connection had formed in the space between them. Not just understanding. The beginning of a home.
Week five.
They'd migrated closer without either of them acknowledging it. Sasuke in the window seat with his back against the frame, Naruto on the cushion beside him, their knees almost touching. Outside, October had turned the garden amber and gold, but Sasuke was watching Naruto's hands instead. The way he talked with them. The way they never stayed still.
"Have you ever been to the ocean?" The question surprised him. He hadn't planned to ask it.
Naruto shook his head. "You?"
"No, just pictures and videos." Sasuke turned toward the window, toward the manicured grounds that went on forever and led nowhere. "I want to walk into it someday. Feel water that big."
"When we get out of here, we'll find one."
When. Not if. The same certainty from last time.
Sasuke glanced at him. Naruto wasn't smiling, wasn't performing optimism. He said it the way someone would say the sun rises in the east.
"What else?" Naruto shifted, pulling one leg up onto the cushion, turning to face him fully. "What else do you want to do?"
"I don't..." Sasuke stopped. He'd never been asked. Never let himself think about it. The wanting was too dangerous. "Learn to drive, maybe. I've never been allowed to decide where I'm going."
"I'll teach you."
Same tone. Same certainty.
"Choose my own clothes." It came out before he could stop it, and then more followed, spilling out. "I've never picked what I wear. Not once. Everything has always been..." He gestured at himself. The blue silk. Always blue.
"What would you pick?"
Sasuke opened his mouth. Closed it. "I don't know. Anything that isn't this."
Naruto's laugh caught him off guard. Short, startled, genuine. "Yeah. You're always in blue."
"It's his favorite. On me." Sasuke heard the bitterness in his own voice and didn't bother softening it. "I don't even know if I like blue. I've never had the chance to find out."
"Okay." Naruto nodded like they were solving a problem. "So we figure out what colors you actually like. What else?"
"Sleep somewhere without walls." Sasuke pulled his knees up, arms wrapping around them, making himself smaller, safer. "Under stars. Eat something cheap and terrible that costs nothing." He cut his eyes toward Naruto. "You still owe me that Big Mac."
"Haven't forgotten." Naruto was grinning now, and his alpha rumbled with satisfaction at making his mate smile, at planning a future for them. "My turn. Go-karting."
"What's that?"
"Little cars. You drive around a track as fast as you can." Naruto's hands were moving again, drawing the shape of a track in the air. "It's completely pointless. Just circles. But it's fun."
"That sounds..." Sasuke searched for the word. "Inefficient."
"That's the point." Naruto knocked his shoulder into Sasuke's, casual, easy, like touching him was simple. Like it cost nothing. "Not everything has to be useful. Road trip with no destination. Just drive until we find somewhere good and stop."
"Where would we go?"
"That's what I'm saying. Anywhere. It doesn't matter."
Sasuke tried to imagine it. A version of his life where he could choose a direction and go. Where stopping somewhere was a decision he made and not a cage he was placed in.
"Arcade games," Naruto continued, ticking items off on his fingers. "The stupid ones with the claw that never grabs anything. Karaoke. Have you ever done karaoke?"
"No."
"We're doing that. You're gonna sing badly and not care."
"I don't sing badly." The words came out stiff, automatic. "I was trained..."
"Yeah, that's the point." Naruto was close enough that Sasuke could see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes. "You're gonna sing badly on purpose. Because it's fun. Because nobody's grading you."
Sasuke shook his head, but his mouth was doing something unfamiliar. Wanting to curve upward.
Building castles out of when and we and someday.
"One more thing." Naruto's voice dropped, softer now. "I want to hear you laugh. Really laugh. Not the one you use at dinner."
Sasuke's breath caught.
"I don't remember what that sounds like," he said. "My real one."
"We'll figure it out."
Naruto held his gaze. Steady. Certain. And Sasuke let himself believe it, just for a moment. Let the when sit in his chest where the if used to live.
Week six.
"Say it again."
"Konnichiwa."
"No, you're still..." Sasuke shook his head. "The 'chi' sound. It's softer. Like this. Konnichiwa."
"Konnichiwa."
"Better. Still wrong, but better."
Naruto grinned. "Your turn. Try this one: that's sick."
"That's sick."
"No, you have to say it like you mean it. Like something's cool."
"This conversation was... sick?"
Naruto burst out laughing. "Okay, technically correct. But you sound like you're reading from a textbook."
"That's because it doesn't make logical sense. Sick means unwell. How is that a compliment?"
"Welcome to English."
"Your language is ridiculous."
"You sound ridiculous."
Sasuke almost smiled. His mouth tugged at the corner, unfamiliar but not unwelcome.
"Did you just almost smile?" Naruto leaned closer. "You did. I saw it."
"No."
"Liar."
They were sitting close, shoulders pressed together, faces inches apart. Sasuke could see the exact shade of blue in Naruto's eyes, could count the faint freckles across his nose. The summer grass and citrus scent drew him in.
The laughter faded. The air between them changed.
Naruto's eyes dropped to Sasuke's mouth. Just for a second. Then back up.
Sasuke's heart was pounding. In his wrists, in his chest, in the space between them that kept shrinking. His omega was pulling toward Naruto now, straining against everything Orochimaru had conditioned into him, reaching for this alpha on a level Sasuke couldn't name.
Naruto's hand lifted. Started to rise toward Sasuke's face.
Sasuke didn't move. Didn't pull away. After seventeen years of being touched by people who wanted his body, someone was looking at him like they saw the person underneath the performance. Like they might kiss him because they chose to. And for the first time, Sasuke wanted to choose back.
So he stayed still, not because he was brave, but because he was starving.
Naruto's hand stopped mid-air. His breath caught. His fingers trembled before curling into a fist. He pulled back like it was tearing something out of him.
Sasuke watched the struggle play across his face and understood. Naruto had almost made a mistake. Had caught himself just in time.
The distance opened between them.
"Sorry." Naruto's voice came out strained. He wasn't looking at Sasuke anymore. "I shouldn't... we can't..."
"Of course, I understand." Sasuke's voice was steady, polished. His wall slamming back into place.
Naruto opened his mouth to respond, but footsteps echoed in the corridor. His head snapped toward the door.
"Staff." He was on his feet instantly, already moving. "We'll talk tomorrow."
He looked back from the doorway, something urgent in his expression. "I'll explain, I promise."
Then he was gone.
Sasuke sat alone in the window seat. The almost-touch still burning on his skin.
But all he heard was the door closing. All he saw was Naruto pulling away. All he understood was that Naruto didn't want the real him either.
THE ABSENCE
The next day, Naruto didn't come.
Sasuke arrived at five o'clock exactly, settling into their usual spot in the window seat.
He waited.
Five minutes. Ten. Twenty.
The library door stayed closed.
By five-thirty, the panic had started to rise. Sasuke pushed it down, tried to reason with himself. Naruto had been late before. Things came up. Gang operations. Danzo's demands. This didn't mean anything.
But yesterday kept playing in his head. The almost-kiss. Naruto pulling away. The promise thrown over his shoulder as he ran. I'll explain, I promise.
First he didn't kiss me. Now he doesn't come back.
The logic was irrational. Sasuke knew it was irrational. But the fear didn't care about logic. It wrapped around him and held on.
I did something wrong. I wanted it too much. He saw it on my face and now he's done.
The one good thing was already being taken away.
Six o'clock arrived. The staff appeared in the doorway, wordless as always, gesturing toward the hall.
Sasuke stood, smoothed his clothes, and followed.
The walk back to his room lasted forever. Loss, maybe. Or grief. The pain of having something real for the first time and watching it disappear.
Dinner happened. Food forced down bite by bite, the new supplements bitter on his tongue. Danzo discussed his expectations for the evening, a new song he wanted Sasuke to learn, something Italian for an upcoming dinner. Sasuke answered when spoken to. The chair across from him stayed empty. When Sasuke's eyes lingered there, Danzo waved a dismissive hand. "He won't be joining us tonight."
No explanation. None offered, none expected.
Or maybe the explanation was obvious. Naruto was avoiding him.
That night, the summons came as it always did.
Sasuke walked to Danzo's room. Stood where he was told to stand. Let himself be undressed, arranged, and positioned.
And tried to leave his body.
He reached for Naruto first. The library. The golden light. The scent of summer grass and citrus that helped him float.
But the thought of Naruto hurt too much now. Every memory tied to rejection, to the almost-kiss, to the empty library and the hour he spent waiting alone. He couldn't escape into someone who didn't want him.
So he tried his old methods.
Prime numbers spiraling outward. Two, three, five, seven...
They scattered. Wouldn't hold still. Wouldn't carry him away.
The ceiling. Watch from far above. Float near the light fixtures and let his body do what it was trained to do.
He couldn't get there. The ceiling stayed solid. His body stayed trapped.
The birds. Arctic terns over endless ocean. Fourteen thousand miles. White wings against blue sky.
They wouldn't come. The ocean stayed empty.
He had nothing.
The understanding arrived without mercy. Somewhere in the last few weeks, he had replaced every coping mechanism he'd built over ten years. The numbers, the ceiling, the birds. All of it traded for one person. One library. One voice telling him about Big Macs and road trips and when we get out of here.
And now that person had pulled away and disappeared, and Sasuke was trapped in his own body with no way out.
Danzo's hands on his skin. Danzo's weight above him. Danzo's breath on his neck.
Sasuke was there for all of it.
Every touch. Every moment. Every second of the endless night. He felt it all.
He couldn't escape. Couldn't float. Couldn't count. Couldn't fly.
His fingers found the sheets, gripped them until his knuckles cramped and ached. The only thing keeping him from screaming.
He just had to lie there and endure it, trapped and aware and breaking apart from the inside.
When it was finally over, when Danzo dismissed him, a staff member escorted Sasuke back to his room. His legs barely held him. The door closed behind him, the lock clicking into place from outside.
His legs gave out and he slid down the wall and tried to remember how to breathe.
A tear escaped. Then another. He let them come, silent and shaking, because there was no one to perform for now. No one to see him break.
He didn't sleep. Couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in that room, trapped and aware and alone.
By morning, something fundamental had cracked.
THE RETURN
Naruto knew something was wrong the second he walked into the dining room.
Sasuke sat at Danzo's right, same as always. Navy cashmere sweater, hair pinned back, the sapphire catching the light. But his face was pale. Shadows under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises. His hands trembled slightly when he reached for his glass.
He wouldn't look at anyone.
"You look dreadful," Danzo said without looking up. "Fix it by dinner."
Naruto's jaw still ached from last night's operation. Some idiots skimming from shipments had gotten a few good hits in before Shikamaru finished them. But that pain was background noise now. Static. Everything in him was fixed on Sasuke, his alpha howling at the wrongness radiating off his mate.
What happened. What did I miss.
He'd wanted to be there yesterday. Had promised to explain, promised they would talk. But the operation ran long, past midnight, and he'd told himself one day wouldn't matter. Sasuke would understand.
Looking at him now, Naruto understood how stupid that was.
Breakfast lasted forever. Danzo discussed territory disputes. The chef brought Sasuke's fortified meal, staff watching every bite, and Sasuke ate like a machine. Fork to mouth. Chew, then swallow, then repeat. His eyes were somewhere else entirely.
Naruto couldn't swallow anything.
Finally, after an eternity, Danzo dismissed them.
----
Five o'clock came slowly.
Naruto got to the library first. Paced. Couldn't sit. When the door opened, he turned so fast he almost knocked over a lamp.
Sasuke moved past him without a word. Went to the window seat but pressed himself into the far corner, spine rigid, shoulders turned toward the glass. Creating a barrier with his whole body. His fingers dug into the cushion's.
Naruto approached slowly. Took the chair nearby instead of sitting beside him and gave him space.
"Hey."
Sasuke's gaze stayed fixed on the window. "Hello."
The formal word. The polished voice from Danzo's table. The one that meant I'm not here right now, I'm somewhere safer, don't try to reach me.
"Sasuke." Naruto leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "What happened?"
Nothing.
"Talk to me. Please."
The silence stretched so long Naruto thought he wouldn't answer. Then, barely audible:
"You didn't come."
Three words. Everything in them.
"I know. The operation ran long. I tried to get away but..."
"You pulled away." Sasuke's voice was flat and distant, reciting facts about someone else's life. "You promised we would talk. And then you didn't come back."
Naruto's stomach dropped.
"Sasuke. No." He was on his feet before he knew he was moving, then forced himself to stop. To not crowd him. "That's not... I pulled away because I was trying to protect you. If Danzo found out, if he saw us..."
"I thought you didn't want..." Sasuke couldn't finish. The words caught somewhere in his throat.
"I wanted to." The words scraped out of him. "I want..." He stopped himself before he said something that would get them both killed.
"I'm here. I came back. I'll always come back."
Sasuke was shaking. Trembling so hard Naruto could see it from across the room. The careful blankness cracking at the edges, and Naruto's alpha could feel what was underneath, raw and wounded and reaching toward him.
"What happened last night?" Naruto asked quietly.
The silence went on so long the light started to change outside. When Sasuke finally spoke, his voice sounded scraped raw.
"I couldn't escape. The way I used to."
"What do you mean?"
"I used to count. Prime numbers. Sequences." Sasuke was talking to the window, not to Naruto. "I would watch from the ceiling. Far away. Or find the birds over the ocean."
"Used to?"
"Since the party." His fingers tightened on the cushion. "It stopped working. I started thinking about you instead. This library. Your voice. The ocean we're going to see."
Naruto couldn't breathe. His alpha went still inside him, the constant howling quieting into an ache so deep it had no bottom.
"But last night..." Sasuke's voice splintered. "I couldn't. Because you weren't... and I thought you didn't want..."
"You had nothing."
Sasuke shook his head. "Nothing." He finally looked at Naruto. His eyes were red-rimmed, devastated, and so tired. "I didn't know what to do. I just had to be there. For all of it."
Naruto understood.
Sasuke had been thinking of him. To escape. To survive. And Naruto had pulled away, made a promise, and then broken it. Left him with nothing to hold onto when Danzo came for him.
Aware for every second of it. Because of me.
"I'm sorry." His voice came out wrecked. "Oh god, I promised. I promised we would talk and I left you alone. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I should have been there. I should have..."
"How could you know?"
Naruto moved toward the window seat. Slowly. Giving Sasuke every chance to tell him to stop.
Sasuke didn't tell him to stop.
Naruto opened his arms. Not demanding. Not expecting. Just offering, if Sasuke wanted him.
Sasuke stared at him. Seconds passed. His expression cycled through confusion, fear, want, more fear. His body stayed rigid, pressed into the corner.
Then he leaned forward.
Just a few inches. Testing.
Naruto closed the rest of the distance and caught him.
Sasuke went stiff immediately. His whole body locked up, unsure what to do with arms that weren't restraining him, with a chest he was pressed against instead of pinned beneath. His hands hovered uselessly at his sides.
Naruto didn't let go. Didn't move. Just held him, loose enough that Sasuke could pull away if he needed to.
"It's okay," he said quietly. "You don't have to do anything."
A shudder ran through Sasuke. His breath stuttered. And then, slowly, like he was teaching himself something new, his hands came up. Found the back of Naruto's shirt and gripped.
He held on like he was afraid Naruto would disappear if he let go.
Naruto held him tighter.
His alpha was settling for the first time since Sasuke arrived. Not howling. Not clawing. Finally quiet. Holding his mate. Finally able to do something other than watch from a distance while his mate suffered.
He could feel Sasuke's omega responding. Not the trained compliance that emerged around Danzo. This was different. Wounded and buried and barely there, but reaching toward Naruto anyway. Recognizing him. Choosing him.
Naruto's breath caught. Sasuke's omega, reaching for him despite everything.
And Sasuke felt it too. Something stirring in him that had been silent for years. Something that recognized safety, even if he didn't have words for it yet.
Sasuke was letting himself be held. Actively choosing it. Letting his weight rest against Naruto's chest, letting his forehead drop to Naruto's shoulder, letting himself be tired and not okay.
Naruto pressed his face into Sasuke's hair and breathed.
"I hate this." His voice cracked. "I hate that he does this to you and I can't stop it. But when it happens, when you can't get away, think of me. My arms around you. I've got you."
A sound escaped Sasuke's throat. Not quite a word. His face pressed harder into Naruto's shoulder.
"I'm not going anywhere. Tomorrow. And every day after."
Sasuke's breathing was ragged, uneven. Then, muffled against Naruto's shirt:
"Tomorrow?"
"And every day after."
They stayed like that. Minutes sliding past uncounted. Two people learning how to hold each other in a library that belonged to the man who owned them both.
At some point, Sasuke's trembling stopped. His grip loosened from desperate to steady. His breathing evened out.
He didn't pull away and Naruto didn't let go.
They heard footsteps, distant but approaching
Naruto pulled back first. Hated it. Sasuke's hands slipped from his shirt, fingers trailing like they didn't want to release.
"Staff." Naruto was already moving, but not toward the door. He slipped behind the tall shelves at the back of the room, pressing into the shadows between philosophy and history.
He wasn't leaving. Not this time. Not until he knew Sasuke was okay.
The library door opened. The staff member stood in the entrance, eyes averted, gesturing toward the hall.
Sasuke rose from the window seat. Smoothed his clothing. The mask sliding back into place.
But before he followed the staff member out, his eyes found the shadows where Naruto was hidden.
Naruto mouthed the word from the darkness. Tomorrow.
Sasuke nodded once, the smallest movement, and then he was gone.
Naruto stayed pressed against the shelves until the footsteps faded. His arms still remembered the weight of his mate. His alpha was quiet for the first time in weeks.
But underneath, held somewhere the mask couldn't touch: Naruto's arms around him. Naruto's voice in his ear.
Think of me. My arms around you. I've got you.
CHAPTER 5 TEASER:
Off suppressants. Weeks passing. And a body protecting itself the only way it knows how: by refusing to respond at all.
Chapter 5: The Waiting
Summary:
Sasuke finds warmth in stolen library hours, where Naruto teaches him terrible Spanish and dreams of Mexico take shape.
But outside their sanctuary, the walls are closing in. Off suppressants for weeks, Sasuke's body refuses to respond the way Danzo expects, and his patience is wearing thin. A bruise. A collar. A phone call that brings Orochimaru back across the ocean. The clock is ticking, and the only thing keeping either of them breathing is the promise of tomorrow.
Notes:
Hello everyone 💕
This is a particularly hard chapter for Sasuke.
For those who caught it: yes, "Can't Help Falling in Love" is becoming their song (the Twenty One Pilots version). Naruto's terrible Elvis impression aside, there's something about those lyrics that fits them perfectly. Expect callbacks.
Note: This is not beta read, so if you notice any errors please let me know and I'll fix them.
Happy New Year! Thank you for being here. Your support means everything.
See you in 2025 💕💕
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.