Chapter Text
It’s a strange kind of pain that she’s only known from movies, television, novels.
But those always end up the same.
Person A is the main character, and they pine after Person B. Person B pines after Person C. Person C pines after Person D. Eventually, Person B sees Person A is perfect for them. Person A gets the happy ending.
Hinata is Person A. Sometimes she feels selfish for thinking that way, but in her reality, it’s true.
Unfortunately, this isn’t fantasy. This is her reality. And sometimes, Person B never realizes that Person A is perfect for them.
And sometimes, Person A just…isn’t perfect for Person B.
Sometimes Person C is perfect for them.
So as Hinata watches Naruto sweep his Person C into a romantic kiss during their wedding, she doesn’t feel much.
She resigned herself long ago to this reality.
It shouldn’t be surprising for Hinata to find herself waking up in Kiba’s bed, at this point. She’s been here for months.
No, it’s not a good feeling. It’s a terrible feeling, in fact. She doesn’t like feeling like a user, but she knows she is. She’s using her best friend, and she can’t even really explain what drove her to do so.
As she sits up with his sheets covering her, she feels guilty when she smells something delicious coming from outside of the room.
He’s always been this way. Always been there for her in her time of need, no matter what that need is. There to listen, let her cry, let her sleep in his bed, hold her hand while she goes to get her boosters, change her bandages, make her food when he notices that she’s not eating—and he always knows when she’s not eating.
So she’s not surprised when he slides his way in with a plate of food ready for her.
She struggles to smile but still does because he deserves at least that.
“Morning, sunshine,” he greets her as he sets a plate in front of her.
“Thank you, Kiba,” she whispers, frowning at the plate.
Kiba looks at her and she feels his eyes on her cheek. She doesn’t move to pick up the utensils, just stares at the eggs, rice, and sausage. It’s lovely food, but her stomach doesn’t want it. He wedges a finger under her thigh and wiggles it to nudge her. “Just one bite of each thing. That’s all I’m asking. And all the water.”
Hinata looks up at his pointed finger, then at the water he placed next to her. She heaves a deep breath because she wants to tell him to stop caring so much about her, but she can’t. She simply nods, and with a shaky hand, reaches out for the chopsticks and slots them between her fingers. Her eyes feel unfocused as she shakily pulls some eggs to her lips, and she whines quietly when they slip between the sticks.
“Here,” he whispers, taking the chopsticks from her to get her another bite.
It’s far too sweet of a gesture than she deserves, but he does it anyway. He always does.
Hinata reluctantly opens her mouth for the food and tries to keep back the nausea that makes her want to immediately spit it out. She chews, slowly, glancing up to find him with those worried eyes. He sets the chopsticks down and reaches over her to grab the water, then offers it. She accepts and sips it.
“That was good,” he tells her, affectionately.
She hates how sweet he is, sometimes. And she knows, she knows it’s terrible of her to hate it.
“Can I lay down for a little longer?” she asks, quietly, mooning her eyes up at him.
She already knows he’ll say yes, so his eager nod of his head isn’t surprising. He pulls the plate from her and lets her squish back into the bed, pulling the blanket up to her chin. He lays next to her, carefully grabbing a piece of sausage and pulling it up. “I can feed you like this, too.”
“Mmm…” she mumbles, pouty. He smiles at her and she wishes it wasn’t so easy to give in to him. She opens her lips and lets him feed her, again.
His fingers land on her cheek and rub little circles there. No one outside of Hinata can really understand how gentle Kiba is, because it seems he’s only this way with her. “You don’t have to have any rice if it’s too much.”
Hinata sighs, quietly. She should be able to have one bite of egg, one bite of sausage, and one bite of rice without problem. But Kiba knows. He always knows. “Thank you…”
“I have to go,” he mumbles, sounding regretful as he pulls the plate up and sets it on the stand next to him, then scoots towards her. She lets him wedge his hand under her waist, hardly squirming now and lets herself be pulled into him. “At least a few days…but I meal prepped some stuff for you.”
“I’ll eat,” she promises a lie.
He’s quiet, and she knows why. He doesn’t believe her. After a few moments, he whispers back, “I asked Shino to drop by and check on you.”
And here begins the fight she always initiates. “You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t,” he responds, frankly.
“You hate me,” she continues, her words wet as she says them, a sob bubbling in her. “You think I’m—”
“I love you,” he shushes her with the words, words he’s said so many times, “I love you, Hinata. Shino does, too. And…sometimes, I just wish you could see how much.”
Hinata whines into Kiba’s shirt as he presses her face into it. It’s a pathetic whine, one that precedes a dramatic sob, because she doesn’t feel like she can handle this. These kind words that threaten to tear apart her heart.
“If I come back from a mission to you dead, I’ll kill myself.”
That’s how the sobs start. “Don’t say that.”
“Tell me you won’t die while I’m gone.”
“Stop it.”
“You stop it.”
Hinata hiccups, ugly and sad. She buries her face into his chest and he pulls her in close. “I won’t die.”
“I wish I could believe that,” he sighs against the crown of her head and it only makes her sobs worse.
He holds her for another hour before she falls back asleep.
Kiba resents being out in the field lately. He has no choice, he has to make money somehow, especially since he took up Hinata as his charge. Shino offers to help him out with money, and gods knows he’s got plenty of it, but Kiba’s pride is too big and he’ll never accept it.
It’s been this way for three months since Naruto officially got engaged. When Hanabi came to him, pleading him for help, he immediately knew this was what his life was gonna end up being. Taking care of Hinata, like he always had. Outwardly, he’d never tell anyone that it drained him. But it did. Mental health issues were not a joke and hers weren’t funny at all. Kiba admitted he probably had something wrong in his head, too (their whole graduating class had to), but he was the humorous type of mentally ill.
No, Hinata was the depressed, quit eating, wither away kind of mentally ill. It was like this after Neji died, too, but that only lasted about a month. Then another year went by and that dumb blond idiot got engaged and she collapsed again. Kiba would never, ever tell her to her face that this whole thing was pathetic. Naruto never had any responsibility to reciprocate her feelings, even though Kiba would be the first to threaten to kick his ass if he didn’t.
But he knew that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to trap a guy like that, and he certainly wouldn’t want to be trapped like that.
Except that he was trapped. It’s what his mom and Hana told him after the first month of keeping her in his home. That she’s managed to trap him, instead. That stung because, before this, his mom and sister liked Hinata. Hana even called her ‘sister.’ So it hurt to see her sink so far that not even his sister could offer her sympathy anymore.
But Kiba always could and always would. It was his fatal flaw, he figured. Not even Shino could put up with this shit.
He just loved her so fucking much. So much it hurt. It hurt him in ways he didn’t know he could hurt. Every time he went out on a long mission, he returned with this awful bundle of anxiety in his chest that he’d open his bedroom door and find her lifeless body. Because she didn’t eat or drink water, or found someone to give her pills, or just straight up closed all her chakra points. He wasn’t sure what she was capable of, and he sure as hell did not want to find out, not at all.
He hadn’t seen her smile once in the last three months. Not a real one, anyway. She was still her kind self and tried to muster a smile once in a while for him, but it was always painful and fake. Like it physically hurt her face to move the muscles up.
So when he arrives back in the Leaf with Lee and Sai, they already know he’s not going to join them to do the report. No one questions it anymore; everyone knows the awful state Hinata’s in. Most people don’t even bother to ask him how he’s doing because he’s lost his cool one too many times telling people to mind their fucking business.
He bolts to his apartment, inhaling deeply until he can make out her perfume—it’s fresh, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Shino would never let her wither away, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to worry.
He unlocks and throws open the door, finding her sitting at the dining table with her head in her arms. Quietly, he steps towards her and then hears the tiniest of snores, and it’s one of the few things that can bring him a smile these days. It somewhat reminds him of how they were before all this bullshit, and he really does hate to ruin it but knows she’ll be sore if she stays this way. Gently, he tucks an arm under her armpits and the other under her legs and sees her eyelashes flutter open.
Even with tear stains on her face, she’s pretty. It hurts his heart to think about.
“Mission okay?” she asks, quietly, lolling her head against his chest. She hasn’t put up a fight with him in a long time.
“Boring as hell,” he mumbles back, carrying her to his bed. He lowers her into it and watches as she immediately tucks into a ball, reaching for his hand. He smiles a strained smile and lets her take it and pull him in.
“I missed you…” she whispers as he sits on the edge of the bed.
He wants to call her a liar but doesn’t, just ignores it. “I gotta shower, I still got all the mission junk on me.”
“Leave me again,” she sighs, pulling her hand away and his stomach contorts. He never realized just how manipulative his once sweet teammate could be.
With a little sigh, he falls back into bed and lets her nestle up into him. It’s a position she’s gotten comfortable with since she started staying here. She refused any physical touch for about a month, then her brain flipped a switch and she did a 180, now she’s clingy as all get out. He doesn’t mind perse, he liked touching her and being touched by her, but it all feels wrong with how they’re going about it.
A few years ago, his teenage self would have been absolutely elated to have Hinata in his bed. Now he’s just sad.
Her body molds to his and he wraps her up in her arms because it’s usually one of the few times she doesn’t start crying. That’s not always true, but it’s true often enough. He pulls her close, feeling bad that she has to breathe in all the dirt and musk from the mission, but not too bad, since she insisted. Slowly, her fingers start to work their way under his shirt and he has to keep back a little groan, one that, if he let it escape, would be a mix of arousal and frustration.
He feels himself tighten up as her fingers scrape against his abdomen and he reaches down to take her wrist. She looks up at him with those big, pale eyes and familiar frown. He frowns back at the way her eyes start to water, and he reaches out to brush the tears. She leans her cheek into his hand and he knows he’s done for already. So he flips her around and makes short work of pulling off her shirt and sweatpants (she barely wears anything else anymore) and she just lets him.
He climbs out of bed to undress, the task not nearly as neat and tidy as her clothing because he has to mess with buckles, ties, and dirt. He grumbles something incoherent as he looks at his dirty hands, then starts to walk to the bathroom. He hears her whine behind him and it actually gets a chuckle out of him. “Don’t be gross, Hina.”
“I don’t mind,” her soft voice calls back to him as he quickly lathers his hands, rinses, then dries them. He stumbles out of his pants before he crashes into the bed next to her, and he doesn’t even kiss her before his mouth is on her chest.
Kiba will admit that he’s just a man. He knows in the back of his mind that this is wrong and that he’s taking advantage of Hinata, but she’s taking advantage of him, too, and that makes it okay in his mind. He knows he’s being taken advantage of, and so does she. It’s a sad, silent agreement.
He slides his hand down her stomach until he reaches between her legs, then immediately slides his fingers there. She’s not aroused at all, yet, so he pulls away to get lube from the drawer. She gasps quietly when he squeezes some out onto her, and he smiles at that. Those little noises are some of the better ones she makes, and it’s one of the few things that brings him comfort these days. He slides his hand back down, met with a much more inviting set of lips, and slides a finger inside of her.
She threads her fingers into his hair and pushes his mouth further against her breast, arching into him, and he lets her. Sex between the two of them is mostly about her, anyway. He usually has a hard time getting off, knowing what he knows and what this is, so he just focuses on her and her orgasm. Besides, her moans and pants are nice noises and he likes to hear them. Under different circumstances, he’d be proud of how well he’s gotten to know her body, how it responds, and what she likes.
He works her orgasm from her with curled fingers, thumb circling into her clit, and his tongue lathing along her nipple. When he feels her body go limp under him, he slows his pace until he pulls his fingers from her, and that’s when he finally relents and scoots up to kiss her panting mouth.
“Make love to me,” she whispers into his mouth, and he groans for it. He wants to shower but does like the way her body feels around him and when she asks like that, it’s hard to say no. It’s not asking to have sex or being told to fuck her like some other women have asked of him. And even though Kiba isn’t sure if Hinata loves him, he knows he loves her. So really, he is making love to her.
Like always, he obliges her request and wraps his elbow under one of her knees, pulling her open and her body easily complies. He presses the head to her entrance, watching as her jaw goes slack and her eyes shut. He presses his lips to hers as he pushes himself inside, and sighs into her. He’ll shamelessly admit that, even if he can’t come, being inside of her is comforting. Lets him know she’s still real, warm and open, soft and pliant.
Kiba never thought he’d be having sex with Hinata Hyuga, but here they were, and it was under circumstances his younger self would call him pathetic for. Oh well. He resigned himself to this a long time ago. As long as it kept her around, he’d indulge in all of her requests.
But he really does want a shower, so he speeds it along. She’s a little more giving today, her fingernails pressing into his back, her hips lifting with his, returning his kisses with her own, soft moans falling out of her, and he’s able to come inside of her. He groans into her neck and buries himself in her, feels the arch of her feet wrap around his ankles as he does. He breathes her in, and even though he knows it’s gross because she probably hasn’t showered in days, he still likes her smell.
“Well, since I’ve got you like this,” he mumbles into her skin, rolling over so she’s on top of him, “might as well both shower.”
“I don’t want to,” she sighs, head dropping forward into his collarbone. He snorts and scoots off the bed while holding her up with one arm. It’s sad, but she’s lost a lot of weight in the last few months and he doesn’t even struggle to keep her up when she wraps her arms and legs around him.
He carries her to the bathroom so he can take care of her like he’s been doing.
One of the few things Hinata still does without being prodded by Kiba (or sometimes Shino) to do is sit outside. Kiba gets annoyed because he wants her to sit outside while the sun is up so she can get some vitamin D, but she only does when the sun isn’t out. After it sets or before it rises is when she chooses to lay in the grass if the mood strikes her. It’s where she is when Kiba comes storming out of his apartment and throws a pack of pills next to her.
“I’m gonna try to be nice about this,” he starts, but his glare is anything but nice. She casts lazy eyes up at him, then glances at the pill pack. She frowns.
Right, those.
“And maybe it’s my fault—maybe it’s my fault not making sure you were taking them, or-or not just using a condom or whatever, but—”
“Doctor says I probably can’t get pregnant right now anyway,” she whispers, turning her head from him. She hears his breath catch at the words.
“I…we’ll circle back to what that means, but it doesn’t matter, Hina.” She feels him next to her when he drops to his knees, hovering over her. “If there’s a chance, it’s—you know. Irresponsible as shit. Neither of us is in any position to have a kid, ‘specially you—”
“You don’t think I’m aware?” Hinata asks, not looking at him. The tears well up again as she pulls the collar of her sweater over her chin.
Kiba sighs next to her. “You know what I mean…”
Hinata does know what he means. She’s well aware of what she is. A complete and utter trainwreck of a mess. The worst part is, she doesn’t even know why she’s like this or how to fix it. All she knows is she feels better when Kiba has his arms around her or when he’s loving her. It’s the only time she knows some semblance of peace.
Outwardly, the reason is obvious. Her brother's dead, her dad hates her, her relationship with her sister is strained, and the only man she’s ever been in love with doesn’t love her. When Kiba began moving her things into his apartment, her father didn’t even bat an eye and Hinata’s sad to admit that it hurt. She’s just waiting for the day Ko shows up on his doorstep to take her back to get her caged bird seal, and then the inevitable drama and fighting between Kiba and whoever’s trying to give it to her.
Hinata doesn’t care. Sometimes she considers just going to get herself branded just to get the anxiety of the inevitable out of the way. Go while Kiba’s on a mission, a longer one, so it had time to heal before he gets back and it’s not as shocking. She knows he’ll lose his shit, but at least it will be done, and they can move on.
Move on to…whatever, she supposes. Nothing at all, really. Sleep. Be force-fed food. Initiate intimacy so she can feel something. Lay in the grass.
Hinata stares up at the crescent moon above and considers getting up and walking away. This is a hard conversation and Kiba usually doesn’t pressure her into hard conversations. He’s always been kind (or maybe soft) like that, or maybe he was just scared of upsetting her. So maybe she should take this conversation more seriously, because it’s obviously difficult for him, too.
But she’s not in a good state of mind, so she gets up.
“What are you doing?” he questions her and she doesn’t look up to see him.
“Going to bed,” she responds, simply, walking towards the door. It’s his bed, but it’s mostly hers, now. She says, quietly, “you can join me if you want.”
She hears him groan behind her. She wonders if she’ll get away with it this time. “Hina!”
She bites her lips together as she hears him come up behind her, then grabs her shoulder to push her back into the wall. She doesn’t resist and drops her eyes to the ground as he leans over her. She asks, “what will you do?”
“I—” She hears the way he stutters on his own words. She should feel guilty but doesn’t. His index and thumb cup her chin and force her head up, but she simply casts her eyes away. “Look at me.”
“Stop it,” she whispers, clenching her teeth together. He moves his head to her line of sight, and she breathes out a tired exhale, meeting his eyes. They’re big and upset and that’s what makes her feel guilty. “What?”
“What are you trying to do?” he asks, letting her take his wrist and pull his hand down. He leans it up on the wall over her so he’s towering over her. He’s shirtless right now, in nothing except a pair of loose sweatpants, and she can feel his skin radiating heat off into her. He had probably been working out before this. She shakes her head. “Don’t give me that. What? You want a baby or something?”
“What woman doesn’t?” she asks back, blinking up at him.
He frowns. “You.”
“Don’t assume,” she responds, schooling a look of indifference. His lips part as he processes her words.
“You think it’ll fix this?” he questions, quietly. Her eyes drop again. “Babies don’t fix a fucked up mind.”
“You’re so cruel to me,” she whispers, pulling her hands up to each other to wring together. He grabs at them and she watches him pull them to his lips, breath hot on them.
“I love you.”
She wishes she believed him, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t think anyone can love her. If Naruto can’t, no one can. “Then get me pregnant.”
A pause sits before he mutters, “fuck.”
She reaches up to press her palms against his pectorals, digging her fingertips in, searching for that look of lust she knows how to draw out.
Really, she’s not even sure why she’s saying all this. She doesn’t care if she gets pregnant. She’d probably prefer not to be but figured it was just another thing for her to be a disappointment for.
Maybe it would fix things. Kiba’s never been the brightest crayon in the toolbox. Who was he to make a call about this anyway? Maybe having another life to give love to would jog something in her heart.
Hinata tries to push away the thought that she’s incapable of loving anything, anymore.
His face is so mean when it’s glaring. She looks down to see his hands slide up her elbows until his fingers lace around her wrists, then pulls her hands from his chest. He pushes the wrists into the wall behind her, above her head. She bites her lip as she meets his eyes, glazed over with want once again, and lets him lean down to latch his lips on the crook of her neck.
She sighs out, knowing she’s pushed him into something he wasn’t running to, but doesn’t care, because she feels like she’s won. She arches her back so her chest presses against his and feels him return the movement, abdomen digging into hers.
“You know what words like that do?” he asks into her skin, and she hums for him to continue. “Create regret.”
“Stop it,” she breathes out, closing her eyes as he releases her wrists, leaving her leaning up against the wall. Her hands drop in front of her and she looks down at them. They’re shaking worse than normal, which is to say they’re out of control. Feeling the tears sting at her lower eyelids and that horrible tightness in her chest, she follows after him to the bedroom while pulling off her sweater. He’s rummaging in his dresser for a shirt, and she flops backward onto the bed, bare-chested. She sees him look over his shoulder and his eyes roll.
“You stop it,” he mumbles, and she whines, quietly, because she wants him to stop being upset with her. She shimmies out of her sweatpants, and he turns back around with a shirt in hand, then frowns at her nearly nude form.
And because she knows he’s weak for her when she’s needy, and that he’s not a paladin of morality, he drops the shirt and tugs the tie of his sweatpants. They fall around his hips and she bites her lips together, moons her eyes up at him. He crawls into bed like she knew he would and flips her onto her stomach. She sighs quietly as his fingers wrap around her hips to pull her up and her panties down, then his tongue is on her from behind. She shivers at the slick feel.
Hinata never once thought she’d be in this position. When she imagined sex, she thought of Naruto. Naruto cradling his body up against hers, speaking sweetly to her, telling her how much he wants her to have his baby, all that sickly romantic stuff that’s supposed to happen when you’re madly, deeply in love with someone, like he was supposed to be with her like she was with him. But now, she’s pleading Kiba to get her pregnant in some desperate attempt to have another human she can love and will love her unconditionally. On her hands and knees, letting him go down on her, hoping he’ll fuck her to sleep.
He's good at it, she’ll admit. She doesn’t like to think about Kiba being with other women but reasons it has to be true. She knows it’s selfish to expect him to be monogamous to her, especially during the years she chased Naruto, but she feels possessive over him. He’s told her before he’s only ever had eyes for her, but she wonders if he’s ever said that to anyone else. She figures he must have.
He must be irritated with her because he doesn’t bring her to orgasm first. Usually, he’ll eat her out or finger her until she has tears on her lashes, but today, he simply gets her wet and malleable, then he’s back up on his knees. She moans out as she feels him press into her, and she buries her face in the sheets. Despite it all, he’s gentle with her, and while one hand guides her hip, the other slides around her front and rests on her throat. It doesn’t squeeze, but his thumb caresses her carotid.
She flexes around him intentionally and hears him panting against her back. It’s one of the few sensations she still likes, the way his breath feels like her skin. Feeling his groan vibrate through his body against her. The roughness of his fingertips, his fangs on her neck, all of those things that happen in those dirty novels the adults read from that the kids would steal glances from.
Now they were the adults, and Hinata wonders just how unhealthy it is for her to become so sexual with what was undoubtedly deep depression.
His hand releases her throat and snakes back to grab her other hip, pulling her roughly against him, and she feels him twitch, his release coming quickly. Her cheek pushes further into the cushion as he lets her go, but he doesn’t let her rest. He circles his arms around her waist and hoists her up like he always does, and takes her to the bathroom.
She wraps herself around him easily, a position she’s gotten used to, and buries her face in his neck, the tears falling freely.