Title: Proxies

Author: Sintari

Rating: M

Pairing: NejiSaku, implied SasuSaku & NejiHina

Warnings: Het

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Author's Notes: Could be construed as a sidefic to Rosemary for Remembrance, couldn't it? Hmmm. Written as a request for AngelsRequiem on LJ.

Sakura leaned back against the bar. Neji surmised she'd had just enough alcohol that the way she lazily surveyed him – down, then up and then down again, stopping somewhere around his stomach region – didn't seem embarrassingly forward to her. He endured her scrutiny. He'd already seen Sasuke, eyes like mirrors turned inward, drinking alone on the opposite side of the three-sided bar.

"Always so serious," Sakura teased, flopping down on the stool beside him and nearly missing. He saw her make the decision in the way her jaw hardened and her fingers tensed. She reached out and stroked a loose strand of his hair. He wondered clinically if he was really that terrifying to approach.

"…Like to get to know you better," she was saying slowly, enunciating each word to convince both of them she wasn't drunk. Neji admired how she managed to refrain from glancing over his shoulder at Sasuke. Her pink hair was up in a high bun, but a strand of it had come loose and now sweatily stuck to her neck. He'd never thought of her as especially attractive, but tonight he couldn't move his eyes away from that tendril of hair. It would have been nice if he could blame the whiskey he wasn't drinking.

She placed a searching hand on his thigh and he found that he couldn't blame her. He too knew what it was like to carry a torch for someone who could never love him back.

He leaned an elbow on the bar so he could look her in the eyes. Her fingers were tracing a pattern up the inside hem of his pants and he didn't stop her.

"You shouldn't use me for this," he told her seriously. "It won't work."

The real, sober, day-time Haruno Sakura wouldn't have spoken so candidly to Hyuga Neji like this. Alcohol had loosened her tongue.

"It might work," she said, and there was a hint of a plea there.

"He's not even looking," Neji contradicted.

There was a sick kind of longing in Sakura's smile. "Not yet."

She slid from her barstool to his lap in a fluid motion, straddling him so that he had to wrap his hands around her waist to keep her from falling off the stool. The bartender chuckled behind them. With his peripheral vision, Neji saw Sasuke glance up, see them, then motion for another shot.

She kissed him slickly, missing his mouth at first, but making up in vigor what she lacked in grace. He cupped the bun at the back of her head to steady her. For long seconds, she kissed Sasuke there, and he kissed Hinata, and then their lips parted.

She bent and touched her lips to his neck, moving up until she breathed into his ear, "Was he looking?"

"No."

He reached up and plucked that fascinating strand of hair from her neck. She moaned a little, and the sound was loud, yet breathy in his ear. Sasuke had heard her. If possible, the Uchiha brooded even harder, staring into his glass.

Sakura leaned back, trusting Neji to hold her up.

"I want you," she mouthed to him. Exaggeratedly. Anybody looking would have been able to read her lips. Sasuke stood up abruptly and left the bar, the grimace on his face not from his last shot of alcohol.

"Happy?" Neji asked. Sakura didn't answer. She traced a finger down his chest, stopping near the button of his fly.

"We could still…"

Neji considered it. It might be comforting. He imagined pressing his nose into the juncture where her neck met her shoulder. Smelling the sweet softness of her shampoo as he came inside her. He kissed her again, then. The alcohol on her tongue tasted sour and he found that he couldn't even pretend anymore. Her hips were bony under his hands, not soft. And he would hate himself if he did it. He hated himself already.

"All right," he said.