Work Text:
It was late at night, the rain was falling, and the left side of the bed was cold.
Hinata shifted, a hand moving along sleepily across the duvet and discovered an empty space. Puzzled to not find her husband sleeping at the end of her touch, Hinata came to full wakefulness. Her other hand instinctively came up to rub at her growing belly, a self-soothing habit that she had no inkling of when it started.
The clock on the opposite nightstand read that it was a quarter past one in the morning. Surely Sasuke had returned home by now and was not still tied up with work at the Hokage Tower. He had promised that he wouldn’t overwork himself once her pregnancy began.
If something came up, he would always leave a note or send one of his snake summons to let her know. But there was no note on her nightstand and no snakes.
The house was quiet, save for the rain’s rhythmic tapping against the roof and windows. Concern made Hinata leave the bed and venture out of the master bedroom towards the stairs. There, she could feel Sasuke’s chakra. Steady but suppressed into a whisper.
She leaned slightly over the railing to peep into the direction of the living room below, where a warm glow was emitting from a lantern. She practically drifted down the stairs in her half awake state, barely remembering how she reached the bottom, as though she had been moving in a dream.
She found Sasuke hunched over a lap full of yarn in the living room. The expensive, milky white yarn entangled in a soft heap. His large body demanded every space, and more, of the armchair he was currently occupying. Callous hands almost swallowed the knitting needles that were carefully being guided and woven through meticulous patterns.
Sasuke glanced up as she approached, tired eyes meeting her quizzical ones. Hinata’s sleepy vision caused everything to appear nebulous around the edges, like she was watching through a looking glass at a dream. It made Sasuke ten times more charming. He looked like a picture perfect man straight out of a romance novel, with a serious expression of concentration on his handsome face.
“Why aren’t you in bed with me?” Hinata’s question drifted softly, honeyed with sleep.
Sasuke’s hand came up to her waist and guided her to stand between his legs. The way he looked at her, so soft and tender, made her heart feel full and warm.
Her hand, that wasn’t resting on her belly, drifted upwards and brushed her thumb over his chin affectionately. She eased down onto her husband’s lap once he secured a stitch marker to mark where he was pausing, and moved the bundles of yarn aside.
Sasuke was still dressed in his work clothes; black pants and a black turtleneck with the sleeves secured around his strong forearms. The Uchiha emblem that she had stitched onto the arms of his sleeves were the only colour on him. Hinata’s fingertips smoothed across the cloak and jonin vest draped over the armrest, where they were neatly discarded.
She felt his big hand slide over her belly affectionately and down her side, resting warmly at the indent of her hip. His thumb caressing her skin over the fabric of her sleepwear, a lightweight yukata.
Sasuke pressed an apologetic kiss onto her shoulder, voice muffled by the thin fabric. “Only intended to spend a few minutes on it before bed. Didn’t want to wake you by going in and out of the room.”
She knew him well enough to know that he had meant to spend only a few minutes on the project but lost track of time when he was too zoned in on what he was doing. What he was hellbent on perfecting.
“It’s so late, my love.”
“I know.” Sasuke kissed her on the neck, right below her jaw. “I know.”
“You have work in the morning.” Even as she chided, Hinata was smiling down at the piece Sasuke had been working on.
The knitted fabric felt impossibly soft against the pads of her fingertips as he placed it in her hands for her to inspect his labour.
“You finished the body?”
She heard Sasuke hum right behind her ear as his lips found the sensitive spot and planted a soft kiss there. “Yes. I was joining the legs and the belly together.”
Hinata rested comfortably on his lap, tucked securely against his chest while his arms encircled her to continue his work. He gathered the roll of yarn and silver needles, then resumed knitting what she assumed was the arm.
He kissed her neck again, murmuring a promise that he’ll finish this quickly and get them to bed. She didn’t mind. She felt content to be nestled in his warm embrace.
The fingers on his left hand guided the soft cream-coloured yarn while the right manipulated the knitting needles with practiced ease. Hinata remembered how awkward those same movements had once been.
When he knitted the first bear. A light grey bear that she kept safely in a drawer.
She remembered sitting across from him at the coffee table many months ago, pretending not to notice the deep crease between his brows as he painstakingly counted every stitch three separate times. His tension had been palpable whenever he accidentally dropped one.
She smiled to herself at the memory. Now, his hands hardly seemed to hesitate. The movements had become almost instinctive. His fingers no longer fumbled with the yarn, and instead guided it with remarkable precision.
Hinata found herself watching Sasuke’s hands more than the motion of the knitting itself. The bandages that extended from his left arm down to his wrist and the wedding band on his ring finger. The veins and scars across both hands, some faint and some prominent. Hands weathered from years of harsh trainings and battles.
They fascinated her. Perhaps because she knew how difficult this had been for him.
His therapist’s suggestion had sounded deceptively simple. Try to create something for your child.
The advice came after a therapy session that Hinata had sat in with Sasuke, where she learned just how difficult it had been for him to overcome his fears of becoming a father. How he had silently managed the struggles for the initial month following her pregnancy, when the happiness and surprise gave way to the dark voices in his head.
Even after years of marriage, after countless days and nights spent building a life together beneath the same roof, there were still corners of his grief that he struggled to let her enter. Not because Sasuke did not trust her, but because he loved her too much to burden her with the weight he had carried since childhood.
The simple suggestion from his therapist had felt impossible for him. Because every memory he carried involving his own hands was soaked in blood and sin. It had rooted itself into the very foundation of how he understood his own existence.
Hands that had wielded weapons and had formed hand seals to harm in the name of revenge. Hands that had destroyed and taken. Hands that had killed, and killed, and killed.
Sasuke had once admitted to her in the darkness of the night as he held her, in a voice so quiet she had nearly missed it, that when he imagined holding their child… he couldn’t. He didn’t think that he deserved to. He feared that his hands would hurt them the way they had destroyed so many things.
The confession had broken something inside her.
His therapist had explained that trauma often taught people to assign permanent meaning to themselves. Sasuke had convinced himself that his hands existed only to destroy because destruction had consumed most of his life.
Hinata could not erase every painful memory for him, but she could remind him of all the times his hands had helped her, been gentle with her, protected her, and loved her. She was patient when he needed her to be. She understood that some days were harder for him and that he needed her unwavering presence and support.
Beneath the otherworldly powers and strength, the fearsome legends in his name and the incredible feats he had accomplished, Sasuke was just a man. A man who had been broken and was trying to heal.
Hinata was there for him through the struggle of finding something to create. She had seen how lost he had been. Sasuke had never gotten the chance to discover what he liked or what he wanted to do in his spare time aside from training and getting stronger.
She had brushed a soft kiss on the furrow of his brows and told him with a softer smile that they’ll try a new hobby each day to see what will interest him. There was no rush, they would go at his pace. And she would be here to hold his hand as he rediscovered himself.
And when Sasuke approached her one day while she was knitting a blanket for their baby growing inside her, asking if she could teach him how to knit, she had smiled brightly with her heart full.
The first bear had taken nearly three months. Three months of unravelled mistakes. Three months of muttered curses every time the yarn tangled or when Sasuke couldn’t look at his hands any longer without the suffocating feeling surfacing like a noose around his neck.
Three months that ended with Sasuke silently placing a small grey bear into her hands.
His first handmade gift for their baby.
She still remembered turning it over in wonder. Every uneven stitch. The slightly crooked ear. The overstuffed belly. Every imperfection. It had been beautiful. Because he had made it.
Because somewhere during those three months of his internal struggles, his therapist had asked him: “When you look at the bear… what do you see your hands creating?”
Sasuke had remained silent for a long moment before he answered: “Something my son might sleep with.” and that had helped him overcome the hurdle that was keeping him from being able to complete it.
Hinata admired the bunny currently taking shape beneath these same hands. Sasuke had made the bear for a son and a bunny for if they have a daughter.
The body had already been completed. Soft. Round. Perfectly symmetrical. She reached forward carefully, tracing her fingers along the perfect stitches.
Unlike the bear, whose stitches had varied almost imperceptibly in tension, every row on this bunny looked beautifully uniform. The little torso felt plush beneath her fingertips, stuffed just enough to make it squishy without losing its shape.
She gently squeezed it and smiled at him over her shoulder. “It feels softer than the bear.”
“I changed the stuffing,” he said.
Hinata’s smile grew brighter. Her husband was a perfectionist, so it was no surprise that he had done extensive research on the materials. Even the imported yarns he chose had gone through an extensive vetting process to ensure the quality and also the safety for their baby.
“I don’t think our daughter would ever let go of this,” she whispered with a wistful smile.
His hands stopped. Hinata felt his chest rise beneath her back as he took in a deep breath.
“…Our daughter.” Sasuke repeated the words as though testing how it felt.
Silence draped over them. She knew it was him retreating inside himself, trying to process the difficult and turbulent emotions he harboured, trying to find the words. She rested one hand over his forearm, soothing him with her gentle touches.
“I want our child to know…” Sasuke hesitated. His hands clenched into fists before relaxing again, fingers slowly unfurling from the palms. “…that their father was thinking about them, loving them, before they were even born.”
Hinata’s throat tightened. Without turning around, she intertwined their fingers for a moment. She looked down at his larger hand enveloping hers.
She thought about the countless times she had watched these hands perform impossible feats.
Hands capable of summoning lightning. Drawing a sword in less than a heartbeat. Shielding her. Shielding Naruto. Shielding the entire village that failed him and didn’t deserve him.
Hinata lowered the half formed bunny onto her lap before gently taking his hand into both of hers. She traced one faded scar running across his knuckles. Then another. Then the callouses left behind by years of swordsmanship.
She brought his hand to her lips. Pressed a slow kiss against the centre of his palm.
“I’ve never been afraid of your hands,” she whispered. His breathing grew unsteady. “Our baby won’t be either.”
A long silence followed. Outside, the rain continued to fall.
Sasuke rested his forehead against the side of her head to center himself. He took deep, measured breaths. Breathing her in and filling his lungs with her familiar comfort. Then his fingers resumed moving. Loop. Pull through. Another stitch.
Hinata nestled further into his warm and safe embrace, her eyes drifting close.
The bunny’s little body rested safely in her lap. She imagined tiny fingers one day clutching it close after a nightmare. Imagined soft baby giggles as floppy ears were chewed by teething gums.
She did not realise when she had fallen asleep. When she stirred, half awake, she found herself being carried by Sasuke up the stairs. The steps creaked beneath their combined weight, his arms steady as he cradled her against his chest. He glanced down at her, his expression soft and gaze loving.
Sasuke always looked at her like she was the only thing in this world.
Hinata’s eyes slipped shut again with a smile still on her face and when she woke again next, it was not yet dawn. The rain was still falling outside and Sasuke was laying beside her, watching her.
His dark eyes looked soft and romantic in the dimness of the room. He had one arm wrapped around her and her heavy belly resting on him to distribute some of the weight away from her aching body. His left hand smoothed his callous palm over the curve of her bump.
Hinata had never felt more content than in that moment, laying in her husband’s embrace. Their child shifted in her womb and he felt it beneath his palm. Hinata looked up to admire the reverence in Sasuke’s face as he stared at her belly.
“I think they’re awake,” she murmured.
Their eyes met and Sasuke gave her a private smile that was reserved only for her.
He leaned down to press a kiss on her forehead, his lips brushing her skin when he spoke. “I want to remake the bear. It’s not perfect enough.”
Hinata smiled to herself as her hand drifted across his chest to feel his strong, steady heart beneath her palm. She imagined their son carrying it everywhere until the yarn became matted from years of being fiercely loved.
And when their son grew older, Hinata would bring out the first bear Sasuke ever knitted to show him that his father had thought of him and loved him so much, even before he was born.