#when naruto n sakura n sai make hand seals together

[anko-y]

said it before but this is the cutest op

[mavda]

Beast Tamers

Ch.1 |  Ch.2 | Ch.3 | Ch.4(1) | Ch.4(2) | Ch.5(1) | Ch.5(2) | Ch.5(3) | Ch.5(4) | Ch.6(1) | Ch.6(2) | Ch.6(3) | Ch.7(1) | Ch.7(2) | Ch.7(3) | Ch.7(4) | Ch.7(5) | Ch.8(1) | Ch.8(2) | Ch.8(3) | Ch.9(1) | Ch.9(2) | Ch.9(3) | Ch.9(4) | Ch.10(1) | Ch.10(2) | Ch.10(3) | Ch.10(4) | Ch.10(5) | Ch.10(6) | Ch.10(7) | Ch.11(1) | Ch.11(2) | Ch.11(3) | Ch.12(1) | Ch.12(2) | Ch.12(3) | Ch.12(4) | Ch.13(1) | Ch.13(2) | Ch.13(3) | Ch.13(4) |

Ch.14: Finding light (2)

Having Lord Minato beside her makes a world of difference. Where Sakura is confidence and control and Sai is awkward fumbling and good intentions, Lord Minato is softness and reassurance, kind words and consideration.

    She knows the pain doesn’t fade, but somehow it becomes more manageable. She rides the contractions with Lord Minato’s hand on hers and though Hanabi and her father come check on her at night, Hinata keeps her hands on her father-in-law. His calm yet gentle demeanor is everything she needs right now and when the pain grows too strong she twists and turns. Lord Minato cooing her as he wipes down her sweat.

    Sakura checks her dilation and Lord Minato stares at her. “She’s progressing nicely.”

    The pain grows too much for Hinata and she begs to be let up. She clings to Lord Minato as she walks around, forcing herself to think of anything but the pressure in her stomach. 

    But even that relief grows thin too soon and she’s back to groaning and panting in pain she can’t escape. She’s progressing nicely they say, but it’s still not enough. She keeps her mind off her pain by moving and walking and digging her fingers onto Lord Minat’s arm and hands -without a single sound of discomfort from him, bless his soul- but even that stops being effective after some time. 

    She knows her father came and stayed a while in the room, she knows Hanabi came and stayed even longer than her father but there’s nothing they can do. She won’t ask for comfort from them, and they are more useful making sure the compound works as usual. Giving whoever sees them the calm confidence that nothing is going on inside. 

    Certainly not letting out that the Nine-Tails’ Beast Tamer’s wife is giving birth to his son inside one of these very rooms.

    She misses him.

    She misses Naruto so much it breaks her heart not having him around.

    And it’s only when the pain in her body makes her double over herself, when Lord Minato’s hand feels terrible on her skin that she knows she can’t hold on any longer.

    She needs him here with her and though it may be selfish and though it may be a bother-

    “You only have to say the words, Lady Hinata,” Lord Minato reminds her and Hinata can’t help the tremble of her chin, the way she hangs onto his clothes as she nods along.

    “Please,” she whispers, “p-please call for N-Naruto.”

    Lord Minato holds her shoulders and calls for Sakura to stand in his place. He leaves immediately after, away from here, into the forest. Hidden enough not to be noticeable from the compound and concealed enough for his technique to not be witnessed.

    The hand seals flow one after the other and his chakra flows. He can feel his signature chakra far away. Away enough for him to barely catch a glimmer, but no matter, this technique was made for this. 

    His hand falls flat into the scroll in front of him and a ball of smoke envelops him.   

•····························•····························•

Naruto reaches into his clothes and takes out the report again. The paper is wrinkled and the letters have smushed together due to his hands tracing the letters again and again. Hinata is in labor. 

    His wife is in labor and he is away. Frustration can never take hold of him properly though, because he is called time and time again. He is paraded. He is taken everywhere and he resents all of his responsibilities for it.

    Until the last moment he visits people. Until the last moment he accepts visitors. His mind focused on the reason why this must happen. His thoughts centered on what this means for Hinata and his son. 

    His body goes through the motions, his mouth says words that make sense. He doesn’t register any of it. His mind is away. His heart constricted inside his chest. He does not want to be here.

    He does not want to be away from Hinata. 

    Time passes excruciatingly slowly. It mocks him. It taunts him. He barks an answer once and Shikamaru just looks at him for a second longer. 

    Naruto asks for forgiveness immediately after, but Shikamaru shakes his words off. “Nah, I get it. Don’t worry.”

    But he does. And he tries to keep some modicum of attention in here. The need to bounce his leg on the ground growing by the second. The need to pace around makes him clench his jaw. 

    Night comes and Sai’s ink summon finds him in his room. He pounces at the technique and the moment the bird-like summon recognizes his chakra his whole body dispels. A neat piece of parchment left in its stead.

    Hinata is still in labor. Everything is progressing smoothly. Everything is good. 

    But Naruto knows that not everything is good.

    Because he’s not there with her and he hates himself for it.

•····························•····························•

He stares at his ceiling and can’t seem to bring himself to sleep. The darkness only summons images of Hinata’s face, the empty space beside him only feeds his loneliness and now even his breathing becomes too loud to his ears. 

He turns and tosses and his body refuses to find rest. He can only glare out into the shadows and wait. His body feels tense and he sits, his neck incredibly tight. He wants to scream and run or do anything at all that doesn’t involve him staying inside this room. 

He needs fresh air, is the only thing he knows. Everything is silent and his every movement echoes along, the wind hits his face and the cold is a welcome change. 

He realizes his jaw is clenched the moment he wants to breathe out into the breeze. He wants to chuckle but can only snort, he feels powerless and helpless and he’s overcome with feeling. He can only sit and let himself be exposed to the night. The cold biting at his skin helps calm his anxiety and the sounds surrounding him let him concentrate on something different than Hinata’s situation. 

…

He drags his hands over his face, his fingers digging at his skin. He needs to-

He wants to be able to do something and it’s driving him crazy.

He’s cursing everything around him when the scroll inside his clothes activates, signaling him that his dad is on the other end, preparing for the technique. 

He flies. He jumps to his feet and he’s sure he takes the sliding door to Kakashi’s room out of its hinges. Kakashi doesn’t even need to hear the words that come out of his mouth, but he says them anyway. “Dad’s calling. I’m leaving, see ya.”

Kakashi is awake and ready, his body had roused itself from sleep the moment Naruto’s feet had come stomping around. He lets Naruto know he’s ready for his job as a replacement, but he doesn’t think his lord heard him. His blond hair already out of sight. His chakra signature already out in the garden. 

Naruto doesn’t leave the premises, they were already prepared for his eventual departure. They prepared a substitute, they had sequestered his quarters. He will still be here and no one will be the wiser about it. 

His hands tremble and he doesn’t realize that he’s still in his sleeping robe until it’s too late to do anything about it. A technique his father had mastered, a technique only his father and his godfather could use. 

Naruto will have to make the way back on his own.

He’s in the Uzumaki compound one second and then he’s in the Hyuga compound the next.

He grabs the scroll, hastily puts it into his clothes and starts running. 

Hinata’s signature chakra fills his body and he feels himself tearing up. Sai finds him halfway through, his face paler than ever, but he reassures him that everything is fine. 

Naruto’s heart is at his throat. He can feel his heartbeat in his ears. His own chakra tells him they are alone too, and he can feel himself relaxing slightly. Everything’s fine. Everything’s good.

Sai guides him through the hallways and he feels his body tingling, his legs move but he has no recollection of moving them, he can hear his breathing but he has no recollection of even inhaling. 

Sai reaches a door and stands next to it, motioning for him to enter. 

HInata is hunched over, her hands clasping at Sakura’s. Sakura says something Naruto doesn’t catch and his wife looks up, her face is red and sweaty, her hair sticking to her. Her mouth is a line and her eyebrows are all scrunched up. She looks like she’s ready to fight.

But then she looks at Naruto and her whole face twists. She waddles to him and Naruto jumps to catch her into his arms, careful not to squash her. His whole body shivers and he engulfs Hinata in a hug the moment she hides herself into his chest. 

She starts crying the next second.

“It’s okay,” he cooes, “it’s okay, I’m here, love, I’m here.” She grabs at his clothes and Naruto rubs his hands at her back. “You’re doing so good, so good, you know, I’ve read every report from Sai. You’re doing amazing.”

He reaches for her face, his hand rubbing circles on her cheek. “Hey,” he calls, his eyes searching for hers, “hey, love.” Hinata sniffles as she looks up to him and her chin trembles the moment she does. She babbles his name.

Naruto smiles at her, his forehead to hers, his lips pressing kisses everywhere he can. “I love you, I love you.”

HInata still cries and presses her face to Naruto, her body still hurts and her contractions don’t let up, but her husband is next to her. Encouraging her and soothing her through her pains, and when she’s tired she can let her body rest on his arms, and when her contractions worsen he messages her back. He swings them around to help with the pain on her hips, her hands around his neck, his hands around her back. She knows that if she were to lose all strength he would catch her and keep her steady. 

And it’s everything for her. 

“I can’t d-do this,” Hinata shakes her head against Naruto. “I c-can’t.”

The pain is immeasurable, her whole body feels tense and tight and sore and like it’s not her own anymore. She can’t do this. She can’t-

“It’s okay,” Naruto’s voice reaches her. His whole body swaying with her. Her strength has all but left her and it’s only Naruto’s arms around her body that keep her upright. “It’s okay, you’re doing so good.”

And Hinata believes him. She stares at his face, the way he brings her hand to his mouth to kiss. She lets herself forget the pain when he kisses her temple. She encourages herself to get through the next contraction as he whispers into her hair. 

And then the pain rises again and she wants to fall to the ground, double over her body, but Naruto doesn’t let her. She bites his shoulder, she muffles her scream into his chest, and when the pain goes away he’s back to his dance. To his sweet nothings into her ear. 

She snorts into his arm. 

“What? What is it?”

“You’re f-funny.”

Naruto scoffs, “Am I now?” 

“I want to s-scream and give u-up and you won’t l-let me.”

His body freezes a second. His hand to the back of her head. “What are you talking about, Hinata? This has been all you, love. All you.”

Sakura’s hand on her body feels as natural as her own now, and with how frequent she has been checking in on her body she doesn’t even feel it when Sakura checks her dilation. 

So the surprise is even greater.

“My lady, you’re ready, let’s prepare you for the birth of the young lord.”

[cherrynojutsu]

Title: Years Past

Summary: Sakura haunts their small home in grief, feeling already a ghost even while surrounded with beautiful raven-haired children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As she sees each and every one of them over the months that follow, a select few stare back with her own eyes. Most of them are so like her husband's, though, luciform soot flecked with silver, and she feels so sorry when she looks too long and starts to cry. Romance, Character Death, Sad With a Happy Ending, Sakura POV.

Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T

A/N: A little late to this prompt, but better late than never, I suppose. This has been sitting in my drafts since June, but reading it made me emotional and I got distracted by writing things for Like Gold. I apologize for the tardiness!

Sasusaku Month 2021, Day 7 Prompt: Years Past @ssskmonth

AO3 Link - FF.net Link

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Sakura passes in her sleep, marcid and weary of a broken heart and missing mismatched eyes, at the age of eighty-two.

It is longer than most Shinobi make it by far, but she doesn't feel very grateful for it, in the last five excruciating months of her life.

Her husband hadn't made it to eighty-two; Sasuke-kun passed in December. It had been peaceful, all three of their children, most of their grandchildren, and even some great grandchildren, the ones not on missions outside of the village, at his bedside.

Sakura had been there, too, old and frail and holding his hand. She'd kissed him goodbye tearily, sensing it was almost time after decades of watching it happen to others inside secluded hospital walls. It had been in front of nearly all of their descendants, family the only thing helping to hold her together in his final moments.

He hadn't complained. He'd kissed her back, for everyone to see, and Sarada and the twins had started crying, then, squeezing their hands around those of their parents, because they knew it really was time.

He had thanked her, said her name one last time, all equanimity even then. Then, so softly, "I love you. I'll see you next time," before he went, bones settling wearily at long last.

There had been melancholy in his expression even in death, wrinkled skin turning glaucous and beginning to sag against old, hardened muscle.

Sasuke-kun was buried next to Itachi’s memorial. There is a plot he saved for her on his other side, his right arm, the hand she held so many times in life.

Sakura haunts their small home in grief, feeling already a ghost even while surrounded with beautiful raven-haired children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As she sees each and every one of them over the months that follow, a select few stare back with her own eyes. Most of them are so like her husband's, though, luciform soot flecked with silver, and she feels so sorry when she looks too long and starts to cry. Little Satoko, their newest great-grandchild all of eleven months old who she dotes on endlessly, reaches at her wrinkled cheeks to try to wipe them dry, babbling out a garbled version of "Oobasan, no cwy." He is talking earlier than most babies, stormy eyes eerily full of awareness and an endless lineage, just like Sarada at that age. Sakura laughs as she sobs, cradling him close to her heart, and looking out her window at their daughter's visage on the mountain. It is also Satoko's grandmother's image; it is hard to believe their sweet little baby is now old enough to be a grandmother. She remembers the first time Sarada had smiled at Sasuke-kun, the first time he held her at only an hour old, and he broke down sobbing.

She makes the trek to Sasuke-kun's grave every day for 138 days, each step an arduous agony, before stooping down to lay a fresh daffodil atop the soil where her husband's bones rest. She has also planted white lilies around his headstone, the same as those that surround Itachi's and the Uchiha Memorial Stone. Her children help her keep them watered as needed through a short spring drought; she is too old to carry a watering can now without spilling.

She misses him. It hurts worse than Sasori's poison or Madara stabbing her or giving birth or a giant shuriken nearly cleaving her in two.

There is joy to be found in the desolation, too, in her last few months of life. Their progenies throw her a birthday party like none other, and she eats her fill of cake while watching little hands eat some, too. Little Satoko dances, or moreso balters, with Sarada in time to a dramatic song he finds by pressing buttons on the radio; it is not a very appropriate tune for a dance with a toddler, all clumsy crescendo and orchestra, but amusing all the same. Sasuke-kun would have smiled, if he were there.

The white lilies bloom before her eyes one last time, resplendent and perfect. She gets to hear about Haruki making Chunin on the first try, every bit the pride of the Uchiha, reborn anew with Sharingan blazing. She even gets to see Akiko make Jonin in person, ambitious and ingenious with Sharingan and diamond seal on her forehead setting her apart from her adversaries in the arena.

But finally, at long last, it is her culminating day. 138 days doesn't seem like a long time to be without him, compared to the larger number of days he was absent in their youth, but she finds it is worse, following their life together.

She tells them all she loves them and falls asleep for the last time, watches their confluence of family say goodbye from above. Sarada and the twins cry the hardest, clinging to her body as her heart finally pumps for the last time. Satoko is too young to understand, but he pats at her, too, in a sea of dark-haired descendants that she knows will continue to bring honor back to a clan revived at the brink of death. She takes in each and every one of their beautiful faces one last time, faces so similar to Sasuke-kun's; not a single one of them has her nose.

It is a legacy of love they have created, exactly the dream they started willing into color the day they discovered they had made Sarada together.

Then, she is on a dock that has slightly singed edges, looking over a small, familiar pond.

It is a spring evening, the sun just falling beneath the horizon and cherry blossoms abloom, and she thinks that is strange, because it is June and Hanami has already passed them by. Satoko had been so cute in his new outfit; she had made it herself, not much else to do in their empty house filled with aching memories. The tiny uchiwa on the back of his collar was sewn with the utmost care, the kind that came from decades of practice.

Crickets chirp, cicadas buzz, and there are a few fireflies leaking out of the greenery, soft light reflectant in the stillness of the water. It is serene. She had sat on this dock many times with her husband, when he was alive, on his right side so she could hold his hand. He told her she was beautiful during Hanami here, every year. She shifts to begin the process of sitting down, planning on leaving the space he'd taken up in life empty for him, in case his ghost is around. She has felt it, sometimes, tugging at her own spirit; she leaves his side of the bed empty every night, trying to will him back to her.

As Sakura shifts, she looks down, and she is startled to see pink hair instead of white, and no wrinkles. She crouches to analyze herself more closely in water still as glass, and there are no creaking old bones. She is young again, somehow.

She is overjoyed; she will be able to water the white lilies herself again. She can even dance with little Satoko now.

Light footsteps sound behind her, and just as she stands and turns, she is being swept into an unfamiliar yet comforting pair of arms. A woman with long inky hair, black as night, is hugging her tight.

"Thank you for loving my son," she breathes immediately, and Sakura starts crying, because she somehow knew who it was before she even said anything, without even seeing her face. When her eyes focus blearily through tears over Mikoto Uchiha's shoulder, Sasuke-kun's brother is walking up not far behind her.

Itachi Uchiha is smiling at her like she's done something wonderful, like he has been waiting for years to meet her. He is younger, healthier here, flecks of silver dancing in eyes just like her husband's, just like their childrens'. There's an impossible ache in her chest.

He waits patiently for his mother to pull back. When she finally does, Sakura looks into her eyes, and Mikoto is smiling at her so big, like she hung the moon in the sky, beginning to peek out from behind clouds above them.

"I have waited so long to meet you," she says, eyes shining, and her eyes are like Sasuke-kun's, too. "You are so beautiful."

Then Itachi is embracing her, and Sakura cries harder, because his arms feel almost like Sasuke-kun's arm had felt, slipping around her for sixty-one years of marriage, the same height and strong.

"I have waited, too. It's an honor. Thank you, for everything," Itachi says as she sobs.

"They are so beautiful, too, Sakura," Mikoto adds softly, hand at her shoulder, and she knows she means their children, Mikoto's grandchildren that she hasn't gotten to hold yet, Sarada and the twins and their children and all the others. Little Satoko had made twenty-seven blood relatives; including spouses who married into the clan, the number was thirty-eight, and there were two more babies on the way, yet.

Itachi lets her go, smile tender when he pulls away. He directs his gaze momentarily to the path leading up the hill, as if he's looking for someone.

She follows his gaze; Fugaku Uchiha is coming over the top, all stoicism even as a spirit. He stops momentarily and gives her a nod of recognition, not breaking eye contact for a long time.

Then, he glances back over his shoulder, tilts his head as if telling someone to follow him down the hill, and Sakura is running, though she hasn't been able to for years.

Sasuke-kun is all of twenty again, young and strong, too handsome for his own good and every bit the sweet but stoic man she fell in love and grew old with. He's smiling at her, just for her, and she's in his arms - he has both, here - in the blink of mismatched, teary eyes.

His arms feel like home, two spirits together in permanence at long last. It is the same feeling as the little piece of heaven they touched together whenever they made love, souls intertwining, but this time for good. She has missed him. Oh, she has missed him.

"...I told you I'd see you next time," he murmurs against her hair.

[cyhyr]

Branding, part 8

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: E

WC: ~3090 for this part / ~41.2k total

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; Warnings Subject to Change

Additional Tags (pertaining ONLY to this part): psychological torture, emotional transference, caning, begging, whump of a child, flashback/memories

A/N: The chapters are getting shorter I'm sorry BUT there's probably only one more and an epilogue left so WOOO

EDIT: I forgot the read break I'm sorry for everyone who had to scroll through it!!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Read on The Archive

~

Kakashi grins as the door to his room opens and Gai shouts his greeting. Both Sasuke and Sakura scurry inside behind him, and something in Kakashi eases, seeing them both well and alive and most importantly not in Danzō’s clutches.

His students scuttle up to him and Sakura asks, “Are you okay? It’s been over a week since—”

“I’m fine, Sakura.”

“Then why are you still holed up here?” Sasuke grumbles. “More importantly, when are we going to be allowed to go home?”

Kakashi puts his hand on both of their heads and smiles as reassuringly as he can. “I’m hopeful that you’ll be able to safely go home soon. But Gai isn’t that bad, right?” Neither of his students say anything, but their eyes going dull says enough; he chuckles and ruffles their hair, then steps by them and lets Gai pull him into a strong hug.

“Jiraiya-sama should be back soon,” Gai says, “and then we’ll get this Danzō business straightened out and you and your wonderful spouse can return home!”

“If only we can find him,” Kakashi murmurs, not wanting to startle the kids. He’s not sure yet if Gai has told them—

“What’s this map for, sensei?”

“Oh, that it’s—”

dangerdangerdispairfearfearfearFEARANGUISH—

“Kakashi!” Gai reaches out and steadies him as he drifts side-to-side.

“Oh shit—Gai—Ahh!!”

Kakashi drops his head into his palms and slips to the ground. His head is throbbing something terrible, like someone’s reached inside and started squeezing his brain. He whimpers and gasps as it worsens in a steady crescendo; Gai kneels beside him, asking what’s happening, what’s going on, but the only noises Kakashi can make are wordless exclamations of pain and tearful gasps of Iruka’s name.

It’s somehow worse and better than Itachi’s Tsukuyomi. He has no idea what Iruka’s going through, but not knowing is so much worse. He can’t focus long enough to reach back across the seal to offer comfort to Iruka. Worse, he can feel Iruka’s own reaction to Kakashi’s own fear and pain and—

“You must pull yourself together!”

Gai’s words cut through the pain and he tries four separate times to catch his breath and lift his head to look up, and on the fifth try he gets ahold of himself enough to pick his head up and let Gai hold him.

“Iruka—”

“Your spouse needs your support, so be his support.”

“I… I can’t—”

Gai shakes him gently. “You are Hatake Kakashi and there is nothing you can’t do! Put aside your own reaction for now and give Iruka-sensei a safe place to retreat!”

Kakashi is able to breathe, listening to Gai’s strong words and pulling himself together. Gai helps him hobble to the futon in the corner, and in transit he realizes that both his students had left the room in the past—the despair rises again, and Kakashi turns and holds onto Gai and grits his teeth while he tries to only experience it and not feel.

But he knows that Iruka’s hurting.

And there’s nothing that he can do.

Gai lays them both down and lets Kakashi shake apart in his arms.

regret.heartbreak.misery.fear.fear.regret.sadness.hope.

“He’s torturing him, Gai,” Kakashi whimpers.

“He will endure, because he has you.”

~

Emi watches from behind her mask as Umino-sensei stares forward, unseeing. She knows what he's experiencing, and she knows that she has to find his limit; but something about the silent tears slipping down his cheeks as he mouths I’m sorry over and over again… it doesn’t feel right. Danzō-sama said that she came into the Foundation too late, and she had wanted to prove herself to him by following through on this.

She shuffles through his mind, replaying the memory of the Kyūbi attack over again. While she does this, she’s looking for information about the seal on his neck, but so far she’s not had much luck.

Emi knows that he can’t make his own decisions, that he’ll come to immense physical pain if left alone without Hatake’s input. That his days as a covert operative are over because he’s unable to take his own life even in emergencies. But what she hasn’t figured out yet is if they’re connected—Danzō-sama wants that information in particular. If they’re connected somehow, and torturing Umino is also effecting Hatake, then she’ll have to step it up and break him faster.

As it is, it seems like Umino is holding up.

But that’s okay.

Emi can do this.

~

Iruka lays out on the cot, curled slightly, hoping that he can find the energy to hobble across the cell to grab the tray of rice that was left for him an hour ago. They’ll be by very soon to take the dishes away and he won't be fed again until after the next bout of torture. He has to eat. He hasn’t eaten in—

The footsteps get louder.

Get up get up get UP

But everything aches and he’s so tired and he feels horrible and…

The dining flap opens and a hand reaches in and grabs the tray. There’s a second of hesitation, but whoever is on the other side of his door ultimately takes it away and locks the flap closed again. Then the footsteps recede and Iruka closes his eyes against the grumbling ache of his belly.

Why hasn’t Kakashi found him yet—or has he, and he’s just decided that he’s better off without—?

No

Don’t

That’s the torture speaking

Iruka groans and rocks himself side to side, hoping that he’ll fall asleep and wake up back home in his own bed and this week all have been a terrible nightmare. His stomach growls.

~

The door to his cell creaks open and Iruka glances up at the two ANBU that enter followed by the Yamanaka. He tries, he really does, to keep himself mentally steady. The ANBU take his arms and drag him off the cot and onto the floor and he takes in a shaky breath and feels for Kakashi in the back of his mind. He hopes that Kakashi isn’t experiencing the torture Danzō is putting him through; that Kakashi is able to continue focusing on the very important task of finding him. Still, Iruka forcefully thinks of reassurance instead of the overwhelming anxiety that is flooding him and making his heart pound and his breath come fast.

The Yamanaka makes their hand signs.

And Iruka hiccups on a broken sob, “Please, don’t do this—”

…

Kanna-sensei grins down at him. “You’re advancing really well, Iruka-kun!”

He loves his jōnin-sensei. She challenges him, believes he can complete every task she sets him to, cares about him and his teammates, gives praise when it’s earned and criticism when it’s needed. She’s a wonderful person, and her wife is just as nice. They said they’ll take the team out for dinner later, but to go home and wash up. They all worked very hard today.

Iruka and Mizuki walk home. It’s a warm, sunny day. The door closes and Mizuki’s face is twisted in anger disgust.

“She’s our sensei,” Mizuki seethes, “do you honestly think she’d give us the time of day if she wasn’t getting paid to watch us?”

The room chills. Iruka shivers and backs up against a wall.

“You’re disgusting. She’s fifteen years older than us and she has a partner. Lusting after her like—”

“It’s not like that!”

“I see the way you look at her! Something’s fucked up with you.” Mizuki groans. “You’ve seen how happy they are together. Why would you want to break that up?”

“I don’t! I like Kanna-sensei, and I think she and Kasumi-san are—”

“She would never be interested in you. She’s a jōnin and you can set traps—and not very good ones, anyway.”

Iruka flushes, the shame intensifying. “Kanna-sensei says my traps are great.”

Mizuki throws his hands up. “So you ARE seducing her! What the fuck, Iruka, someone should fucking fix you before you embarrass everyone.”

“F-fix me?”

Snarls, Seething, Disgust. “Like how you fix a dog’s bad behavior. You gotta get it beaten outta you. You’re sick, and you need it.”

Iruka feels sick. He doesn’t want to break up Kanna-sensei’s marriage. But Mizuki has a point and he’s… he feels something when he’s with the both of them and it’s warm wrong. He’s meek as he asks, “Will… will you help me?”

Mizuki scoffs. “No. Of course not. You need professional help.”

Iruka falls to his knees and begs, “Please! I can’t trust anyone else with this, pleasepleaseplease—”

“Alright, alright, fine! But only because you’re my best friend and I can’t stand by while you ruin yours and Kanna-sensei’s lives.”

Iruka sobs and instead repeats over and over, “Thank you, Thank you—”

Mizuki takes his hand and they still have their gear on but they put their shoes back on and leave the house and go out into the woods. “Find a stick, no thicker than your wrist,” Mizuki tells him, and crosses his arms while Iruka slinks off to find a small branch, cutting it away from the tree with his kunai. He shaves off all the smaller twigs and bumps and presents it to his friend, who takes it and inspects it, humming. “Good enough. Now, go take your shirt and mesh off, and put your hands on that tree trunk.”

He does what he’s told. He wants to be fixed. Mizuki’s going to beat it out of him…

The bark is rough under his palms, but he curls his fingers into the wood to keep steady.

“Normally, I think you’d have to count,” Mizuki says. “And that you’d have a set number of strikes. But this is serious, and I really think that you just need to get beat up until you promise to never look at her again.”

Iruka nods. It sounds wrong terrible what is he doing reasonable.

Mizuki starts, bringing the stick down over Iruka’s back. He grits his teeth, keeping from crying out. He doesn’t deserve to cry. He’s brought this on himself. Another, and another, and another, and Iruka feels the tears slipping out of his tightly shut eyes.

On the fifth strike, he whimpers.

“Good, it’s working,” Mizuki says.

On the seventh strike, he gasps. It hurts so much, but not as much as knowing that he could have been the reason that would cause Kanna-sensei and Kasumi-san to break up.

On the tenth strike, he cries out, “I’m sorry, Mizuki, please stop—”

“Not yet. You’re not fixed yet.”

On the twelfth strike, he very nearly screams. Mizuki stops for a moment and pulls his headband down and stuffs it into his mouth. “You make too much noise and you’ll alert the patrols. Do you really want the whole village to know how fucked up you are?”

Iruka shakes his head and bites down on the fabric. Mizuki was nice and didn’t put the metal plate between his teeth.

His legs collapse by the twentieth blow, but he bows his head and bares his back to Mizuki still, and his begging is muffled by his headband but he says, “Please fix me, please keep going, I don’t wanna hurt anyone else.”

Iruka doesn’t remember the rest. They come too fast, it hurts so much, he feels horrible—

…

~

She’s done, and she has confirmation that Umino-san believes that he and Hatake are emotionally connected. Emi rushes out of the cell and stalks quickly down the hallway, stopping into the restroom at the end and shutting herself in a stall.

She throws up.

Something feels wrong. She’s experiencing emotional transference. She has to pull herself together before she reports to Danzō-sama.

One of the other ROOT operatives bang on the restroom door.

“Just a minute!”

She pulls herself together, and washes her face and hands. She’s still shaking.

She hadn’t even needed to really adjust the memory to make it torturous for Umino. He really did just stand there while his friend caned him black and blue, all in the name of removing an emotion he wasn’t even sure he felt. Emi stands tall, puts her mask back on, and walks out of the room.

The two ROOT operatives stare at her as she walks by them, and she goes to make her report.

But when Danzō-sama asks if she’s found anything new… she tells him, “Nothing relevant.”

Then she goes home to the Compound and asks to speak to Inoichi-san.

~

“We’ve received word from Jiraiya-sama that they’ve found Tsunade-sama and are bringing her home. Once she’s here, she can make a bid for Hokage.”

Kakashi groans, feeling the waves of disgust.guilt.terror.violation from across the seal. “How long until they’re here?”

Shikaku hums. “Another week at most.”

“Iruka—”

“Will stay strong. He has you to lean on.”

“That’s not—”

The door opens, and Inoichi stalks in. “I have news.”

Kakashi can’t help the swell of hope. Iruka will feel it, he knows, and maybe it’ll help.

“We know where he is. Down to the cell.”

“Wha—How?”

Inoichi shakes his head. “I swore I’d keep their identity secret.” He looks at Shikaku and asks, “When can we expect Tsunade-sama?”

“A few days, a week at most,” Shikaku reiterates. “Can your contact help him in any way until then?”

“Until—no, we have to break him out,” Kakashi snarls. “We can’t leave him in there, we know where he is!”

“Kakashi, be reasonable. The second we make a move to extract him, Danzō will react. We need to remove him from power first—”

“I’ll go in myself and get him.”

“We don’t even know how many ROOT operatives there are. I won’t let you walk into a fight we don’t know you can win.”

Kakashi growls, “I would kill every single one of them to get Iruka back.”

“And is that seal talking, or are you really that sure of your abilities?” Shikaku snaps. “We’ll play this smart. Inoichi will have his contact work on the inside with Iruka-sensei, to make sure he knows that rescue is coming and to stay strong. And you will stay here until we know we can safely extract him and not risk getting caught and hanged.”

Kakashi huffs and stands up. He makes to walk out of the room, knowing that if he stays in here he’s going to lose his temper. Yoshino-san makes him pause in the doorway as she calls out, “He’ll understand that extraction is delayed due to timing. He’s been in these situations before.”

Kakashi keeps walking.

He gets back to the room he’s staying in the Nara house and flops onto the futon, burying his face in the pillow. In the back of his head he can feel Iruka’s despair and guilt and pain.

“Stay strong, Iruka,” Kakashi whispers, hugging his pillow to his chest.

Every part of his body aches. He’s grateful for the seal to have let him share his pain with Iruka, if only so he could wake up from Itachi’s attack. But the physical, throbbing aches of the emotional transference makes him wish he’d not woken up—

And that makes him feel horrible.

If he’d not woken up, then Iruka would be facing this torture all alone. And going by the relief he feels from Iruka periodically, usually whenever he reaches out first… he likely wouldn’t have survived without having Kakashi to lean upon.

For now, his mind quiets slowly. Iruka’s gone to sleep.

Kakashi hopes he sleeps peacefully.

~

Iruka stares, unseeing, at the cell door. It took him twenty minutes after they left to be able to pull himself together and get off the floor where they left him. Now he lays on his side, his arm pillowing his head, as he tries so desperately to not let the memory that had been unearthed overwhelm him. He’d almost managed to forget the time he’d begged Mizuki to beat him into unconsciousness—he had been too young and too stupid to understand what he’d really felt, or how to articulate those feelings.

His back aches, sore and throbbing like it had happened yesterday instead of almost ten years ago. He'll give them credit, that Yamanaka operative is good. He can still feel each of the strikes he’d taken across his back with each inhale; worse, the guilt and disgust he’d felt at himself keep rolling in his stomach. And he knows now, with self-reflection and time and distance from the event, that all he’d ever felt for Kanna-sensei and her wife had been longing, because they had so much reminded him of the warmth he received from his parents.

He hadn’t wanted anything perverse. He just missed his parents. But as an attention-starved preteen, Mizuki’s words had made a horrible kind of sense. That of course the longing he felt when he looked at them was wrong. It took years to forgive himself for that naivete and for letting his best friend manipulate him so easily.

He’d woken up in the woods, alone, with his shirt and mesh haphazardly dropped on the ground beside him, so battered and bruised he could barely walk. It had taken every ounce of his strength just to stand up, and then he was beyond exhausted by the time he made it home. He didn’t make it to training for a week; he never did find out what Kanna-sensei had thought happened, but she never mentioned his week-long absence.

At the edge of his mind, he feels a careful brush of warmth.worry.sorrow.regret.strength and finally, he closes his eyes and smiles. How strange it is, the relief and comfort that touch brings him, when not a few weeks ago he had thought Kakashi couldn’t care less about him. The touch of Kakashi’s mind against his own is something he could never have dreamed would bring a smile to his face, especially after Kakashi branded and sealed him.

And yet.

I’m okay, he thinks, and sends hope.resilience.calm back through the seal. Someday, maybe, they’ll find a way to speak to each other through the connection the seal provides. Until then, Iruka contents himself with the knowledge that he’ll always know how Kakashi feels, even if it also means that his own feelings are no longer private. If it’s Kakashi… he supposes he can live with one person knowing his thoughts.

Something else comes across the connection, like an impression more than a feeling; one that has his breath stuttering and tears slipping out of his eyes and his stomach flipping in a good way.

Soon.

[uchihasakurawrites]

A Lesson in Practicality (1)

Rating: T for language & depictions of violence

Summary: It takes a near-death experience in Yukigakure for Sakura to realize that Sasuke has her back in more ways than one.

Word Count: 3,154

A/N: This idea was going to be a short drabble, but the storyline ended up going in a direction that I didn’t initially plan for. There will be a Part Two (of 2). Part One has more implied SasuSaku - Sasuke will play a much more significant role in the next part! There’s a very high chance that this is going to be a prequel for the longer SasuSaku fic I’m currently working on. 

Let me know what you think, please!! Thank you to everyone who has left feedback on my work thus far~ 

Cross-posted on AO3 and Fanfiction

______________________________________________   

Sakura had heard enough stories from her fellow kunoichi about birthday gifts from their boyfriends to know that Sasuke’s definition of a gift was unique, to say the least.

Sai’s most recent gift to Ino was simple - a modest bouquet of flowers, carefully cultivated to convey a special message, a basket of cherry tomatoes from his personal garden, and a painting of the two of them on what Ino later told Sakura was their engagement day. Naruto once took Hinata on a two-week getaway to the hot spring resorts of Yugakure for her first birthday after they became official (though Hinata later let it slip that Naruto hadn’t informed Hiashi of their vacation and was subsequently banned from the Hyuuga compound for the foreseeable future). Chouji hosted a surprise birthday party for Karui just a few months after she migrated to Konoha, complete with her closest friends from Kumogakure and a home-cooked buffet. Even Shikamaru had stepped up his game with a private couple’s cooking class at Amaguriama, knowing that Temari would punt him to Suna if he showed up with just the personalized shogi piece he had originally planned on giving to her.

Temari had still barely let him escape, fully aware that Shikamaru had organized the class in hopes of never having to go out of his way to buy her favorite sweets again if she could just make them herself. Watching him burn three batches of roasted chestnuts was enough of a gift in itself.

Sasuke hadn’t been in the village for any of Sakura’s birthdays since before his defection back in their genin days. Even then, she couldn’t remember him going out of his way to give her a gift beyond grumbling out a low “Happy Birthday” if team training happened to coincide with her birthday.

To say that Sakura was shocked when she awoke to the tap tap tap of a messenger bird at her window before dawn on her nineteenth birthday was an understatement. Her grumbles at being awakened at such an hour on a day Ino had explicitly banned Sakura from working stopped the second she recognized the bird as Sasuke’s hawk. After fumbling with the latch on her window for a moment - she swore that the hawk gave her some serious side-eye when it took her three tries to get the latch to unstick - she held out her wrist for the bird. It left in the next breath, right after Sakura untied the scroll it was carrying. Sakura frowned at the hawk’s manners as she hadn’t even gotten to send a reply but realized she shouldn’t expect much. Of course Sasuke’s summons would take on his taciturn attitude.

The note tied to the scroll was simple: A last resort.

Huffing a laugh at the note, which was so very Sasuke, Sakura made quick work of the scroll’s seal. She immediately recognized the script as a summoning scroll, though she couldn’t parse out exactly what the summons was. Most likely one of Sasuke’s if he had sent it to her - a hawk or a snake. She sincerely hoped for the former.

Her first Chunin exams had effectively wrecked snakes for her.

Sakura resealed the scroll with a small smile. She had learned what she was getting into quite quickly when she first realized her love for Sasuke ran deeper than a surface-level crush. Any relationship she had with him wouldn’t be normal, be it romantic or platonic. Sasuke’s definition of a relationship was understandably different than most others; she had to learn how to read into the small gestures and unspoken words he left between them - the forehead pokes, the thank you’s, and the occasional mumbled annoying. There would be no typical gifts, no grand romantic gestures, and she was okay with that.

She had hardly expected a congratulatory note for her birthday, let alone a physical gift. Sure, a summoning scroll might not be the most conventional gift, but Sakura figured the practicality of it summed up Sasuke’s approach to relationships perfectly: securing the safety of those closest to him. This particular gesture meant she was at least somewhere on his (very short) list of valuable people in his life.  

So when she tucked the scroll away, she did so with a smile, knowing that the added weight next to her medical supplies was a comfort that Sasuke had her back no matter where he was.

                                                 *   *   *   *   *

Sakura discovered that sentiment was far more literal than she had initially thought as she fled the scene of an assassination mission gone wrong in Yukigakure. Eliminating the target - a noble displaced by the war who sought to sow seeds of discontent against the ruling family - was fairly straightforward. A quick henge, a few unconscious guards, and a convenient chakra-induced heart attack left no trace to Konoha or the royal family.

The bounty hunters on her tail were decidedly less straightforward.

Since the end of the war, Sakura’s field mission count had dropped drastically. With Tsunade out of the village, rebuilding and strengthening Konoha’s medical system fell squarely on her shoulders. Ino’s support with the Children’s Mental Health Clinic left some room in her schedule for diplomatic medical missions to neighboring villages as a show of goodwill after the Allied Shinobi Forces dissolved, but she was rarely included in combat units. Kakashi had only assigned her to this solo mission as a favor to Koyuki since she was already familiar with Sakura from her genin days. Relations between Konoha and Iwagakure had been steady enough after the war, but Kakashi couldn’t risk instability in a country so close to Iwa.

While Sakura had kept up with her combat skills as well as she could through spars and periodic demonstrations at the Academy, she could feel the rust in her reaction times as she adjusted her own fighting style to the unfamiliar terrain. Snow meant additional chakra expenditure to maintain body temperature and keep her feet planted firmly on the ground; it took her the first few moments of the pursuit just to adjust her fighting style so that she wouldn’t go skidding across ice when she followed through on her punches.

It was the split second of hesitation between her noticing the first hunter rapidly approaching from behind and actually lunging to the left to avoid his attack that cost her a kunai to the thigh. The wound was deep, but Sakura was less concerned about the fact that she could clearly see the muscle fibers in her leg and more concerned about neutralizing the unknown poison that was trying to spread from it. Sewing the skin together enough to stop the bleeding was second nature; it was maintaining a chakra net around the wound to contain the poison that required a bit more focus.

Based on both their speed and specialized jutsu, Sakura guessed the hunters were at least jounin-level. Ten to twelve  total based on a quick extension of her sensory jutsu. Had this been a different situation, Sakura would have been flattered that someone thought she was dangerous enough to send so many high-level shinobi to ambush her. She made a quick mental note to thank Karin for training her in a variant of the Kagura Shingan jutsu.

Running forever wasn’t an option, especially at the pace she was being forced to keep. She needed to start picking these guys off - she figured she had faced far worse odds and won.

Sakura slid to a stop and waited precisely six seconds for about half of the hunters to catch up before she drove her fist into the ground. Unsteady ground and low visibility from the snow she had loosened caught the two closest hunters off guard, and she pressed her advantage to neatly slice their jugulars open with chakra scalpels. She took note of their appearance, standard shinobi gear in shades of white and grey and curiously blank hitai-ates linked around both of their necks, and paused just long enough to snatch one of the headbands for later inspection. She tucked it into her medical pouch before rounding to face the next wave of hunters.

Most of the remaining nin were smart enough to keep their distance; they must have done enough research on her to know that engaging her in close-combat was the fastest way to lose. The nin fell into a loose semicircle formation around her, half close enough for mid-range attacks and half further back. If they were Iwa or Yuki missing nin, she could expect mostly Water and Earth-style jutsu - the same affinities she had, but probably much more practiced.

Keeping a firm hold on her Kagura Shingan to track her opponents, Sakura quickly formed the seals for Suiton: Kiri Shikaku she had picked up during a brief stay in Kiri and saw an immediate improvement in her vision. She caught four hunters in her visual range and charged forward, hoping to close the distance between them fast enough for her to get a clean hit. All four flew through the same familiar sequence of hand signs she had seen from Iwa nin during the war, and a solid rock wall about ten feet high erupted in her path.

Not deterred in the slightest by the barrier, Sakura augmented her speed with chakra and drove a fist into the wall. The rock gave more resistance to her wrist than normal, so she quickly adjusted the chakra concentration in her knuckles to absorb the additional force. The hunters, she guessed, had infused their chakra into the wall in hopes that the reinforcement would injure her wrist or at least slow her down.

Sakura smirked as her fist drove clean through the wall and followed her punch up with a roundhouse to shatter it. Their chakra control was good if they could spread it so finely across the surface of the wall - but hers was better.

She darted towards the closest target and delivered a punch to his gut that snapped his spine clean in half. His partner appeared at her side in the next breath, driving his katana towards her neck and forcing her to drop to her knees to dodge. Sakura swept her leg underneath the nin’s feet, ignoring the stinging sensation of the snow on her skin as she followed the nin’s dodge up with a well-aimed kunai. The weapon landed squarely in the back of his dominant hand and forced him to change grips on his katana.

A small part of Sakura’s mind was immediately suspicious when the two other nin closest to them chose to charge her head-on instead of retreating. Perhaps she had given them too much credit if they were reckless enough to rush into a taijutsu battle with her just because she had taken a few of them out.

It made more sense when chains of water shot out from the ground to bind her ankles and wrists firmly to the ground - the work of the long-range nins’ combined Suiton: Suikusari no Jutsu. They must have been watching for an opening to slow her down long enough for the mid-range hunters to close in on her and deliver a killing blow.

The chains were sturdier than any suiton she had faced in the past, no doubt due to the number of hunters who were focused on restraining her. Sakura channeled a burst of pure chakra to the surface of the skin on her wrists, ankles, and torso; anywhere the chains touched, she honed in on. She could either drive her chakra into the chains, slow down the water molecules in them so that they turned to ice, and shatter them, or push her chakra directly outwards to free herself long enough to move away from the chains.

The first option would have been a more permanent solution, but the breath of a hunter nin on her neck forced Sakura into the second. With a shannaro! Sakura willfully tore her body out of the chains, redirected the chakra to her feet, and used the closest nin’s chest as a platform to fling herself over the chains and out of reach. She shoved one foot into the woman’s chest and used the other to bat a kunai with an explosive tag away from them both.

What Sakura didn’t account for was the nin she had planted her foot on reacting quickly enough to snag her ankle and drag her to the ground with her. She used the momentum of her fall to slide further away from the chains and twisted her ankle to free herself. Ice-covered rocks sliced at her forearms and stomach, but she drove her fingers into the ground to lever herself forward.

Crippling pain radiated from her ankle as soon as she was free, drawing a hoarse cry from her throat. She hadn’t seen a weapon in the nin’s hand, and there was no open wound. A second wave of searing pain nearly brought Sakura to her knees yet again, and she reached out for her medical chakra to send to inspect the area as she narrowly vaulted over a windmill shuriken -

Only to find that summoning her chakra felt like pulling a viscous liquid through a fine sieve. The chakra that had been isolating the poison around her wounds only stayed in place from sheer force of will. She spared a quick glance at her ankle, eyes widening at the black seal branded onto her skin.

Fuinjutsu.

Sakura didn’t recognize the seal and didn’t have time to inspect it further. Water chains exploded from the ground beneath her just as four hunters lunged at her from each direction. She jumped into the air, twisting to narrowly avoid a series of kunai. A loose shuriken lodged into her calf. Sakura immediately recognized the signs of poison digging into her system; she also recognized with a growing trepidation that it took far more of her concentration than she could spare to dredge up the medical chakra necessary to isolate it.

Whatever seal the hunters had placed on her was blocking her chakra flow, but not in a way she had experienced before. Training with Shizune’s poisons and Hinata’s tenketsu blocks hadn’t prepared her for this. Her chakra wasn’t completely inaccessible, but it was as though a fine mesh had settled over each of her chakra points. It was as though the hunters hoped she would continue trying to mold her chakra, exhausting herself enough in the process that they could take her out.

Her dread grew when she reached out for her Byakugo only to feel the same fine mesh blocking her access. She could still feel the mass of chakra settled behind her forehead, but she doubted she could summon enough of it fast enough to make a significant difference in this fight.

Sakura had a sinking feeling that this seal, which she hadn’t even come across in the Uzumaki fuinjutsu scrolls Naruto had lent to her, was designed specifically to hinder ninja with her level of chakra control and reserves. It didn’t matter how much control she had if it took her six times as long to drag her chakra to a specific point. Keeping the poison in her system at bay occupied enough of her attention at the moment. Evading the seemingly endless water chains that followed her and the four nins on her tail only added to her exhaustion.

One of the hunters managed to land a kick squarely on her side, cracking at least two ribs. Sakura took another blow to her back, and she twisted to catch the nin’s ankle. She snapped it cleanly in two, baring her teeth as she drove a kunai into the kunoichi’s neck before she could finish the seals for an Earth-style jutsu.

She managed to keep with this rhythm long enough to incapacitate another two nin but knew that she was reaching her limit. She took a half dozen more hits from the closest hunters and a particularly nasty cut from a katana before she pulled back, focused on her seal, and pushed. Black lines twisted down her face and startled the hunters long enough for her to shunt what chakra she could get ahold of to the soles of her boots. The force of the chakra from her seal was enough to push what little she needed through.

Sakura took off at a sprint, running as far and as fast as she could in the opposite direction of the hunters who immediately followed suit. Knowing her options were limited, Sakura scrambled behind the first large boulder she could find and snapped the highest level genjutsu she could manage over the surrounding area. Her jaw clenched to choke off a scream at the fire that lanced through her chakra network as she forced her chakra into the jutsu.

Her chakra control, it seemed, was not better than whichever nin had developed this seal.

She quickly surveyed her condition - several lacerations, at least two cracked ribs, and more poison in her system than she could afford to isolate at once - and realized that the seal on her ankle was not only making it more difficult to mold chakra but also draining it. Sakura immediately withdrew her own chakra, slamming her Yin seal down before the hunter’s seal could touch her reserves. Without her Byakugo, Sakura figured she barely had enough chakra to maintain her genjutsu and keep the poison around her major wounds locked in place. Healing herself would do nothing but leave her drained and vulnerable when the hunter nins eventually found her.

Her genjutsu skills had improved drastically under Kurenai’s tutelage, but the hunter nins would eventually figure out what she had done and double back to find her. They knew as well as she did that she wasn’t in a condition to flee very far.

Without hesitation, Sakura withdrew the summoning scroll Sasuke had given her from a pouch at her hip and snapped it open. She didn’t have enough chakra to summon enough of Katsuyu to be useful, and Sakura would be long dead before reinforcements came even if she did ask Katsuyu to send a message to Konoha.

As much as she hated snakes, Sakura desperately hoped for Aoda as she drew a bloodied thumb across the parchment (though the rational part of her brain noted she probably didn’t have the chakra to handle that level of summons either). She blanched at the strain the summons put on her chakra network and wondered belatedly if she had overestimated how much of what little chakra she had left she could actually direct towards the summons. Slamming her eyes shut with a choked cry, Sakura visualized grabbing onto the thin trails of chakra that creaked through her veins and pulled.

If she’d had the energy for it, Sakura is certain she would have screamed when it was neither a hawk nor a snake that appeared before her - but rather, Sasuke Uchiha himself.

[hatake-no-sharingan]

Time travel AU (Part 3: Live for me)

AU Summary: The world is falling apart, and the Sage of the Six Paths sends Naruto back in time to find his parents and collect the thing that will help him and Sasuke save the shinobi.

Link to part 1: HERE

Link to part 2: HERE

Part 3 Summary: Naruto’s birth is here, and as much as he’d like to make time with his family last a little bit more, he has to face the thing that hurt him all his life, the loss of his parents. 

Characters in part 3: Y/N (as Naruto’s mom/ Minato’s wife), Minato, Naruto, Sasuke, Obito/Tobi, Kakashi and Sakura

Warnings: Character’s death :( (I’m so sorry about this, it was painful to write)

A/N: Thank you for letting me write this beautiful story @itsao-mine Hopefully you won’t hate me too much for making you wait and writing a sad story :( I really do hope you like it. It has a bittersweet ending, but I really like the way it turned out. I switched the events in Naruto’s birth a bit, so it doesn’t follow exactly like canon. Enjoy reading and keep requesting <3 Be kind.

Live for me

The three of them wished they could’ve frozen time that week, and stayed like that forever. Naruto even imagined that the baby Y/N was carrying was his little brother instead of himself in this odd and tragic reality. Maybe in another life he’d get to carry his little brother on his shoulders and teach how to use jutsu for mischief, take him to the academy for the first time, train together in the woods, then they’d go back home and Y/N would be waiting for them with a big bowl of ramen, and they’d get to share stories with Minato, and they’d be a nice happy family of four. Perhaps Minato would have fixed everything with the Uchiha, and they wouldn’t have to die. Sasuke would smile more, and Itachi would treat both of them as his little pupils. Maybe things could’ve been different. There wouldn’t be a timeline where Kaguya enslaved everyone to the tree, and he wouldn’t have had to meet his father as a reanimation. Maybe Obito would have lived and maybe Kakashi would be happy too. Too many maybes, and just one wish that he could save his parents tonight.

Naruto, you’ll feel the deepest pain you’ve ever felt, but you have to let things happen the way they were meant to be. If you don’t, Kaguya will win, and everything you’ve ever known will be gone.

The sage’s words echoed in his mind, creating a scar deeper than his battle wounds.

Now he was here, holding his mother’s hands and stroking her hair as the birthing contractions hit her body.

It was weird, seeing himself be born. The worried look on his father’s face, his mom’s eyes full of hope through the pain, and then it happened. Everything was blurry and confusing, it was way faster than he imagined it.

Obito was there, he had his baby self hostage. There was panic in his father’s eyes, but a glance at him let him know the baby would be fine. However, he let Minato rescue him, because things were supposed to happen this way. It was Naruto’s worst nightmare happening before his eyes. One of the most terrible tragedies in Konoha was about to take place, and he couldn’t do anything about it. This was harder than anything he’d ever done. He could fight the strongest enemy, learn the hardest jutsu, but this, was worse than anything. He had to let things happen.

Restraining himself was worse than anything he’d done, but he did it. So hid himself and watched as his mother cried, how Obito was about to break Kurama’s seal, and all he did was prepare himself to collect the special chakra that would leak out as the tragedy took place.

He wished he could take Y/N’s place as the Kyuubi was being pulled out of her, his heart breaking at the sight, but he made the signs and put his hands out. He felt the power the sage had given him activate as the chakra started seeping in. White hot powered gathered in his palms and spread through his body. He couldn’t think, only feel. It was intense, but like a shooting star, it was gone in a second.

The residual chakra was now safely inside him, and he was ready to get back to his timeline, but seeing Y/N weak and in pain stopped him.

Once Obito was gone, he rushed to her side and tried to aid her with the only medical jutsu Sakura had taught him.

“Mom, stay with me, please, live for me”

Tears dropped from Naruto’s eyes to Y/N’s chest, as he summoned every prayer he knew with his heart.

“Mom, I’m here, I love you” he held her close and then teleported both of them to the spot where he knew Minato would be fighting Obito.

Sasuke is already waiting for him there, ready to pull them back, but he knew this was hard for Naruto, so he waited for him to give him the sign whenever he was ready to leave.

The fight with Obito was already over, it was only the Kyuubi, his dad, his mom, his baby self and him, with Sasuke watching from the side.

Had that much time passed? The entire night didn’t make sense to him, and as much as he thought he had prepared for this, it was a thousand times worse.

“Dad!” He shouted and Minato looked at him and Y/N while struggling against Kurama. Strangely, he flashed him a kind smile, like he’d already figured something out.

Everything was already in place for the seal. So he was going to go through with it. Minato was still willing to sacrifice his life for his son. He does everything exactly as the tale he’d been told said. The black mark appears on the baby’s stomach, and he knows there’s no turning back.

“Naruto, get your mom close to me”

He obeys his dad without thinking and gets her close to him. Minato makes a few hand signs and presses his palm to Y/N’s weak chest. When he removes it, there’s a slight glow exactly over the spot he touched.

“Listen to me,” tears sting in the boy’s eyes as he looks towards his father “I don’t have much time. I’m not going to make it because the seal needs to take my life in order to work, but your mom will. Your mom can live, she’s an Uzumaki. I sealed a small part of Kurama’s chakra back inside of her. Just enough for her to live. I need you to be strong, Naruto. Take your mom with you to the future. Nothing will be altered. If you take her now, she’ll get the chance to live there with you, but the baby in front of us will grow up exactly the way you did, without parents and with Kurama sealed inside of him. He’ll still save the future, but you’ll have your mom now. Take her, and as much as it pains you, let me die here.”

Naruto nodded furiously, clutching his dad’s arms as if that could prevent him from slipping away.

“I love you, Naruto. Never forget that. Take care of your mom for me. Listen to everything she says, and whenever you miss me, just hold her tight.”

He turns to meet his wife’s gaze. She’s barely hanging on. Pain pulses through her body, but her husband’s kind eyes keep her safe.

“Y/N, my love, I’m not sorry for this. I’m not sorry for my life, and for dying to give you and our child life.”

“Minato” Y/N pleads, voice broken

“Live for me, Y/N. Give Naruto all the love we couldn’t give him all those years. See him become a great Hokage for me. He’s already surpassed me. I love you my sweet princess. You made my life worth living.”

“I love you Minato”

The last thing she sees is her husband’s calm smile, then she passes out.

Naruto thinks he notices the sandaime gesturing towards his dying father as Sasuke holds him and Y/N, pulling them into the time travel jutsu that will take them back to their timeline.

Y/N wakes up in the hospital a week after Naruto and Sasuke’s fight. Her wounds are mostly healed, and her strength seems to be recovering. Tsunade herself oversaw her care. She placed her and Naruto’s beds next to each other.

When she opens her eyes, she sees a familiar figure in front of her, though she experiences a bit of a confusion because the person in front of her is slightly different than she remembers.

“Hi, Y/N” says the voice she knows too well. “Naruto will be back in a bit, he asked me to watch over you while he’s in rehab therapy.”

“Kakashi” she manages, with a smile “you’re old”

“I know, it’s weird, right? That we’re almost the same age even though you and your husband basically raised me”

“This will definitely take some getting used to”

Kakashi immediately notices the change in her expression as she remembers what happened. He’d lost Minato a while ago, but she’d just lost him now, and he understood her pain, he knew it was greater than anything because he’d never seen two human beings mor perfect for each other than Y/N and his sensei. Tears start falling from her eyes and Kakashi sits next to her, gently holding her hand and giving her the support she needs.

“I know it’s not okay, but it will be. You have an amazing son to live for, and after all this time, I’m so happy to see you again, Y/N”

As he finishes saying it, Naruto enters the room with Sakura pushing his wheelchair.

“Moooooom! You’re awake! I’m so glad you’re awake. I’ve missed you so much, so long. It was very boring to lay here in bed and just watching you sleep. I missed talking to you. Well I did talk to you, a lot even though you were asleep. But I’m insanely happy that I got to bring you with me. And guess what? Sasuke is good again! I mean, he’s always been good, but he just noticed it now! He’s back here, and everything will just be so good now. I can’t wait for you to meet him, and all my friends. Gosh everything will be-“

Sakura landed a blow on Naruto’s head.

“Baaaka! Can’t you see she’s barely woken up? She has to recover and you’re bombarding her with a ton of information.”

Kakashi laughs lightheartedly and Y/N is happy to see he’s come a long way from the hurt, sad boy she knew. He gestures for Sakura to leave, and they let mother and son have their space.

A month later, Y/N and Naruto are fully healed and discharged from the hospital. Kakashi, Sakura and Sasuke, also recovered now, are there with them.

“We have a surprise for you two” says Kakashi, as they’re walking out.

He leads the way, and a few minutes later, they find themselves in front of a sunset colored house.

“We rebuilt it with my memories and a few pictures, it’s not the exact same, but hopefully it’ll be good to help you start your lives as a family again”

Y/N and Naruto have their hearts full with gratitude.

“It’s perfect. Thank you all. You have no idea how much this means.” She didn’t want to cry, but being with her son, and seeing her house, Kakashi being happy, Sasuke and Naruto getting close again, it was all too much.

They celebrated inside, Y/N made ramen for them, and they spent the evening laughing and telling stories to Y/N from when they went to missions together as Team 7.

They left a bit late, and Naruto helped his mom clean up.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t get to hold you as a baby, to cuddle you and to give you all my love, but I see now that you had the best support team you could ever have. I’m thankful Iruka and Kakashi stepped in for us.”

“I’m just grateful I get to have you with me now, mom. That I can call someone mom, and that I have a real home, like I always dreamed of, yaknow?”

She laughed and hugged her son tightly.

“I just wish Minato were here to see it all. He was so proud of the man you have become. I miss him so much.”

“Hold on, he gave me something for you. Give me your hands.”

She held them out and Naruto placed his hands on top of hers. A warm glow passed between them, and she recognized the chakra by the way it felt. She closed her eyes, and inside her mind, he was there.

“Hello beautiful”

“Minato”

She hugged him tightly.

“I’ll always be here, inside you. Now a part of me is a part of you. You get to live for me.”

[obsessionsdumpster]

A/N: sooooo idk what this is exactly, I just had an idea and decided to try and write my own fic for once though I’m not sure if it turned out good lol I think it’s a bit too long and I realised I don’t know how to write kissing scenes. Anyway please enjoy and let me know what you think

A Ninja’s Day Off (Kakashi x reader)

(Y/N) stepped into the Hokage’s office, finding Tsunade sitting by her desk, a pile of books and important documents surrounding her.

“Hokage-sama, I’m here to provide you with the mission report”

“Excellent, I’ve already received and deciphered the scroll your team has sent me with all the informations you were able to collect. It seems all went smoothly, good job (Y/N)”

Despite the formalities Tsunade and (Y/N) were rather well-acquainted, being (Y/N) one of the few Hokage’s personal ANBUs meaning that she certainly trusted her. Because of that, Tsunade glanced at the girl standing in front of her and even though she was wearing the ANBU mask, she could clearly see the exhaustion that was radiating from her, hence she spoke: “(Y/N), you’ve been out there constantly completing quest after quest for quite some time now, I know that is due to the high amount of missions the village is currently dealing with, but I can see you’re at your limit, that’s why I’m giving you the permission to take a couple days off in order to rest and recover”.

“Thank you, Tsunade” replied (Y/N) with a smile, and with that, she was off.

When she reached her apartment block, she opened the door and stepped inside. The room was a mess, to say the least: there were dirty clothes scattered all across the floor mixed with random ninja scrolls with all sorts of seals written on them, along with some kunai knives and shurikens all over the apartment. She sighed to herself, realising just how long it had been since she actually stayed in her apartment for more than 10 minutes or so, just enough time to change and pack for yet another mission.

(Y/N) decided that a nice hot shower would help her take away some stress and tiredness, so she headed towards the bathroom, stripped off her clothes and stepped under the hot stream of water that felt so nice on her bare skin.

After she was done, she stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around her form, then, feeling her stomach grumble, she decided to head in the kitchen to have a snack.

Unfortunately for her, when she opened the fridge she realised that everything had already expired meaning that she had nothing to eat. Nice, she thought.

That’s when her eyes fell on a small paper bag that was laying on her kitchen table. She reached to it to inspect the content and saw to her delight that inside the bag were three big red apples, her favourite. Besides the apples she saw a small note: ‘figured you wouldn’t have much at home to put in your belly after being away for so long. Enjoy - Kakashi’

(Y/N) couldn’t help but smile widely at the kind gesture. (Y/N) and Kakashi had been best friends for a long time now, having been on the same team during Kakashi’s ANBU days and continued to hang out even after he left and became a sensei. To (Y/N) he was more than just her best friend though, for as time passed she started developing romantic feeling towards the copy ninja but always shrugged off those feelings out of fear of ruining their amazing friendship and because of the fact that a potential relationship would have been a rather difficult thing to handle for two Leaf Jounin such as themselves, their positions implying a dangerous lifestyle that put their lives constantly at risk; it wasn’t a secret that a normal love life wasn’t something that two Jounin of that caliber could aspire to. Truth is, she had been told by some people like Jiraiya (though he didn’t seem very reliable) that Kakashi did in fact return her feelings. It’s not that she considered that to be impossible, she had to admit that sometimes she could feel the chemistry between the two of them, but it was like they both shared some sort of unspoken agreement that kept them from bringing the relationship forward, preferring to stay as best friends. She would say she was fine with that, what she cared about the most was being by Kakashi’s side and she really enjoyed their unique friendship but she couldn’t deny that, sometimes, this situation made her kind of sad. (Y/N) thought that things were going to stay like this forever, but she was wrong.

Chewing on her apple, she started cleaning the apartment, picking up all the clothes from the floor and reorganising and storing all her scrolls. After she was done with that, (Y/N) finally sat on her couch determined to either take a nap or just relax. However she found herself just sitting there staring at the wall, boredom taking over as she started repeatedly tapping her foot on the floor. She was so used to so much action in her life that a simple day off was starting to become more difficult to handle than she could have imagined.

Suddenly an idea popped up in her head: ‘you know what? I’m gonna pay Kakashi a visit. He must be at the training ground right now, training with his team. I’m sure it’ll be fun watching him and team 7, maybe I’ll even be able to help him out, who knows’.

Thinking it would be fun to sneak up on them while they were training, (Y/N) approached the training field making sure to suppress her chakra to avoid being detected. She positioned herself on top of a well hidden branch of tree and, rather amused, observed what Kakashi and his team were doing. It looked like they were learning how to conceal themselves, judging from the fact that Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were all trying to find a good hiding spot to avoid getting caught by Kakashi.

Naruto managed to find a spot on the same tree as (Y/N) without noticing her. An idea popped to her mind and, with a mischievous grin, she appeared behind the blond’s back:

“Yo, Naruto” she said without a warning.

What came next was a scream and then a thud. Naruto had fallen off the tree and was now lying on the ground, his teammates and sensei approaching him, a puzzled look on their faces.

“W-Wh-What was that?!” said a shocked Naruto, followed by (Y/N) making her appearance jumping off the tree and landing in front of them.

“Hi everyone”

And before anyone could say anything, Naruto started screaming again.

“(Y/N)?!?!? Why would you do that??? I was perfectly hiding from Kakashi-sensei until you came and revealed my presence to everyone!!”

“Your ability to conceal yourself from other ninjas is the worst Naruto, it was obvious you were hiding on that tree” said Kakashi before giving (Y/N) his signature one-eyed smile “anyway, (Y/N) you’re back already, what are you doing here?”

“Well it’s my day off, so I though I would pay you a visit you know, to thank you for the apples and to see what you and team 7 where up to” she replied a bit embarrassed, realising she just admitted she wanted to see him on her day off.

“It wasn’t a big deal, really, I just figured you would like them” he said with a smile, scratching the back of his neck, which, (Y/N) thought, was kinda cute. “But since you’re here” he continued “would you mind giving us a hand? After all, ANBUs concealing techniques and chakra suppressing abilities are the best��

“Sure! When do we begin?”

And with that, Kakashi and her began teaching the young Genin all the tricks in the books.

When they finished practicing the sun was setting. All three team 7 members improved their skill a lot, especially Sasuke, but even Naruto did surprisingly well considering he wasn’t very well versed in hiding his presence, being the show off he was.

After saying goodbye to the kids, (Y/N) was left alone with Kakashi who, making sure his students were gone, spoke up:

“Well that was intense...are you hungry? We could stop somewhere on our way back and have dinner, if you would like to of course”

“I would love to! I’m starving, plus we haven’t hung out in a while, it’ll be nice to chat a little”

“Yeah” was what Kakashi replied, though he seemed, (Y/N) thought, to be a bit tense but she shrugged off that feeling once they started walking back to the village.

They decided to stop at one of their favourite cafes in Konoha (consciously avoiding Ichiraku’s ramen to avoid bumping into Naruto) to have dinner together and talk about the usual stuff like mission etc.

(Y/N) really missed talking to Kakashi, he was like a soothing presence to her, his voice never failed to make her feel a little happier then before. Whenever they were sharing these simple moments, even as just friends, (Y/N) couldn’t help but feel butterflies in her stomach each time. It was a bittersweet sensation in which she felt both very happy and sad because of the fact that she was in love with her best friend, but would be to scared to actually make a move.

She snapped out of her thoughts when food came and they ate in silence.

When they finished eating their dinner, they both exited the shop and started walking together through the village.

“So how was your last mission? You’ve been gone for quite a while. Tsunade told me it was a very important top secret mission” asked Kakashi after a while.

“It worked out somehow. I didn’t think it would take so long either but we had to deal with something unexpected which caused us to carry out the mission for 3 weeks straight”

“I see” said Kakashi before he went silent again. To be honest he was being pretty silent, not that he was and extremely talkative person, but still when he was with (Y/N) he would usually be more relaxed. This time however he seemed to be lost in thoughts and she found herself wondering what it could be.

They sat on a bench, admiring in silence the starry sky. It was a comfortable silence, each of them appreciating the others presence.

(Y/N) let out a small shiver when their arms accidentally brushed against each other.

“Are you cold?” asked Kakashi.

“No, I’m fine” she answered before letting out a long sigh.

“Is something wrong? Your mind seems to be somewhere else”

(Y/N) was taken aback by his comment, realising she had been just staring at the sky for a while, thinking about him, to be honest. She didn’t exactly know why but she felt the urge to be honest to him so she spoke her mind: “Nothing’s wrong it’s just- I really missed hanging out with you, you know, being with you and just talking about nothing in particular. And it makes me a little sad that these moments have become a rarity lately, because of our schedules and everything...”. She had no idea why she went that far expressing her feelings towards him. Damn this almost sounded like a confession.

When she realised what she just said, (Y/N) turned her gaze from Kakashi, trying to hide her face that was now a blushing mess.

Kakashi didn’t say anything. He was looking at her, a blush of his own barely visible under his mask. (Y/N) had never been this sentimental with him before. Could it be possible that she was trying to tell him what he wished she was trying to tell him? - he thought.

It was now or never, thought Kakashi. She had just opened up to him and now he felt like it was the perfect time to do the same and tell her about his feelings. “There something I want you to know (Y/N)” he spoke up, making the girl finally turn her face towards him with a questioned look.

“I really like you, you know, more than just a friend”.

That’s it. He said it. There was no going back, so he went on “I’ve been acting like we’re just friends but I can’t do it anymore because I think-“ he stopped for a second, thinking about what he was about to say “- I think I’m in love with you and can’t keep pretending otherwise”

(Y/N) stood there, her eyes widened and a shocked expression on her face. There she was thinking she had just made a fool of herself in front of Kakashi for almost confessing her feelings to him, and now she just heard him say he loved her??

Soon enough the shocked expression she wore was replaced with a closed-eyed smile: “I love you too Kakashi” she finally said, then added with a chuckle “I was scared to tell you ‘cause I thought it would ruin our friendship but if you put it like that...”

When she reopened her eyes she saw Kakashi lower his mask (which didn’t shock her much since being best friends for such a long time meant that she had seen his face in many occasions) and leaning forward, cupping her cheek. She did the same until their lips finally met.

(Y/N) thought that the feeling of Kakashi’s soft lips on hers was the best.

After a few seconds, they gently started moving their lips in unison to deepen the kiss.

When the two broke apart, gasping for air, they both smiled at each other.

Maybe, (Y/N) thought, things did change after all.

[airashisakura]

Written for @harunosakuraweek Day 3 - Healing

Rating : General audience

Characters : Haruno Sakura

Summary : What she could do was to wait and heal, like always she has done.

A/N : This is an part from next chapter (which is still not posted because of lack of motivation) of one of my fic - You, Me and US

Her heart had felt heavier since the moment she brushed past Sasuke and moved towards the hospital. Sasuke was leaving again, and she wouldn't be seeing off him tomorrow, unlike the previous time.

It was past-midnight and before the first ray of sunlight hit the ground, Sasuke would leave again — leave her again, and this time, she was perplexed.

When she had met Sasuke on her way to a mission to The Land of Waves, her heart had fluttered, and their return to Konoha together had given her hope that he was finally going to stay. Her hopes had crumbled ‌when he asked Kakashi to assign him official missions from now on. Kakashi nodded, and there Sasuke went — another reason to run out of the village.

She had endured the past two years with a memory of the forehead poke. Every time she had been losing her belief in love for Sasuke, her fingers involuntarily moved and grazed above her byakagou seal. She always smiled, believing Sasuke would come back to her and keep the promise he’d made.

Sakura held her pillow tightly, scrunching her legs closer to her body. Like every night, she felt the sensation of Sasuke's finger on her forehead. Her fingers didn't move now. She just stared blankly, trying to find a hidden meaning behind his promise.

She found none, because she had felt the intensity of Sasuke's feelings back then.

Sasuke wasn't lying, was he?

She sighed heavily. She shifted her position and lied on her back, staring at the dark ceiling. Her left arm rested beside her head, the right clutching the sheets. One of her legs stuck out from under her bedsheet. The falling temperature of the night pricked her bare skin, but it didn't matter. Her heart had grown heavier since Sasuke announced he would leave again.

She had worked herself to exhaustion in the hospital that day, just so she could sleep after coming back home. Sakura was growing irritated because this certainly was not happening. Her green eyes had sunk deeper into their orbits — thanks to the mission she took, and thanks to meeting Sasuke accidently during that mission, and thanks to Sasuke returning to the village with her and then deciding to leave again.

Naruto's wedding was near, and she didn't want to hang around with dark circles.

I need to sleep; she told herself, shutting her eyelids tight.

She wasn't sure if it was the cold or her heavy heart that woke her up. It wasn't dawn, and she realized she had only slept for a short period of time.

Great, she sighed in frustration as she retraced her sprawled limbs inside the sheet.

She could hear two sounds that broke the stillness of the night — the ticking of her clock and her heartbeat. Her heartbeat was a lot faster and louder than it ought to have been. She wasn't sick, and he knew exactly what was happening.

She placed her palm over her racing heart. She could feel the heart muscle beating with so much tension — as if they didn't want to, but someone had commanded them to. She gripped the fabric of cloth tighter till her fingers went numb.

What's happening to me?

She wanted to cry. Cry like she had the time Sasuke had tried to kill her. She remembered being greeted by her dad's jokes when she came back home only to laugh before dragging herself to her bedroom.

She remembered punching the mirror in her room till blood gushed out of her knuckles. She had gritted her teeth when her mom scolded her for impulsively throwing things and breaking her mirror, not knowing what had really happened. She had broken down, while more and more blood had gushed out when she heard her mom leaving. Later that night she had fallen on the floor as dizziness took over and had been reduced to a mess of her own tears, sweat, blood and hatred.

She had moved from her parents' house after that and lived alone now. She didn't have to hold back her screams anymore or clean up messes while she cried her eyes out.

Cry now, she challenged herself.

A single drop rolled out of her eye. Nothing more. That felt ridiculous to her.

Really, what's wrong with me!

She had felt like she was suffocating from the moment Sasuke said he would leave. All the feelings and hopes she had harboured stabbed her heart, mocking her patience.

This feeling — it wasn't the first time she had felt this way. The moment she had come back from The Land of Iron, she had felt totally defeated. She had gone to ease Naruto’s burden and to resolve it on her own. She had stared blankly at her reflection when she got home — she’d been a complete failure. Anger had bubbled up inside her as she saw the dark marks of Sasuke’s fingers engraved on her pale throat. A surge of pain and dejection had crashed inside her as she realized that Sasuke had nearly choked her to death.

But the person who had choked her back then had been a person engulfed by darkness.

He's not that Sasuke anymore. Why do I feel this way again?

Maybe he choked off her love this time. What he couldn't do consciously back then.

She was overthinking, she knew for sure, but she didn't know what she should do. She had never been in this situation before. The idea of running to Naruto or Ino crossed her mind.

But Naruto's getting married, and Ino has Sai now. I can't just ruin their happiness for my sake.

She knew her friends were always there for her, but running to them every time Sasuke left didn’t feel right. She wasn't that girl anymore!

She stared blankly, not sure what to do. The numbness of her fingers had faded, and she could feel the fabric of her top. She slid her hand inside the top and rested her palm over her bare skin. Her heart was still beating loud and fast.

She had been through this before as well. It hadn’t been an easy process — the sleepless nights and doubts of her love for Sasuke. Eventually she had come to terms with her emotions. She had fixed herself little by little, focusing on herself and focusing on getting stronger.

She closed her eyes, focused on her breathing, and listened to her heartbeat. She knew what commanded her heart to go on when she wanted to give up — her heart was telling to love herself.

Sasuke leaving always left her in shreds because she was too afraid to live alone. It was hard imagining her world without Sasuke, and she always begged him to stay. She couldn't stop Sasuke from doing that, but she could prioritize herself and stop chasing him.

Over the years she had healed little by little — changed herself, although her love for Sasuke had stayed the same. All the emotional scars she had were healed the same way she had healed other people. She was glad to be the person she’d become.

She inhaled deeply as her disheveled thoughts started making sense again. She closed her eyes, knowing she would be able to heal again.

Finally, she was at peace with her decision to not see Sasuke off this time. She knew if she had gone, she would have ended up begging him to stay again. She had always loved him, so this time, she wanted to see if Sasuke Uchiha really had harboured some feelings for her.

Love wasn’t easy — it was always a two-way effort. For the first time in all these years, she believed she had been doing her part diligently. Now she would again wait for Sasuke to return. For she knew, if you set your love free, it would always return if it was true.

[oneyanderegirl]

Secret Glances

Genre: One-shot, Hurt/Comfort Rating: T Sasuhina Month 2020 Theme: Day 5 (Secret Glances)

A/N: This turned out much longer and different than I thought. It feels nice to be writing again though, even if I am rusty. Part of my one-shot series for Sasuhina Month 2020. You can read the other parts by going on my profile and clicking the fanfiction tab. Hope you enjoy! Warnings: Mentions of death.  

The heat felt endless.

How long had she been up already? The sun was at its peak during this time of day, burning everything in its path, including herself. The sun felt as if it was burning her all too pale skin despite all the sunscreen she had put on just earlier before she went out. The sounds of cicadas could be heard merrily singing amongst the grass and trees. The birds that stayed hidden from view seemed to harmonize with them, creating a symphony of wild music that never seemed to end.  

It was summer.  

“ Hinata-chan, hurry up! You’re falling behind again!” Cried a voice.  

She could see long, platinum blonde hair swaying from a distance as the woman who had called out to her ran closer and closer. Before she knew it, the woman had already managed to grab a hold of her.

“ Ino-chan!” She yelled in surprise.

“ You haven’t gone out in forever with us! Don’t even think about trying to sneak out. Especially, not after what you promised us the other day. Let’s hurry up and catch up with the other girls before we get left too far behind.”

Hinata could feel the seriousness hidden behind those bright blue eyes of hers. She could only nod in response, which satisfied her friend. She could feel herself being dragged along as the two of them ran to catch up with the other girls that she had promised to spend the day with.

Summer.

It was her first summer without Neji.

Her cousin had died during the Fourth Great War less than a year ago. His funeral had been held during the end of Autumn. She could never forget that day. The day when the Hyuga had forced Hinata to give a speech in remembrance, despite still grieving for him. She couldn’t even cry during his funeral. A part of her couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t accept that one of her most important people had passed. Even as she witnessed his own corpse being lowered to the ground so that he could be buried and pass on in peace, Hinata still couldn’t accept it. He was a strong shinobi, one of the strongest in all the village.

Yet he had died.

He had died protecting her.

He had died because she was too weak. Had she been stronger, Neji never would have been killed. She had blamed herself ever since he had died. It didn’t matter what other people said, it was Hinata herself who had ultimately ended up killing him.  

But during these times, she would remember the words from a man that she had barely spoken to over the years. She remembered it was only a few days after the war when Hinata had decided to  visit him on a whim. She remembered the desperate helplessness she had felt when it seemed no one could truly understand the pain she felt in realizing the death of her cousin was real. It was only after speaking to him that she could finally find some relief and hope in the void that Neji had left behind in her soul.

That man was Sasuke Uchiha himself.

“ How do you deal with the pain of losing a loved one?” She quietly asked.

Sasuke kept staring out the window for what felt like an eternity before turning to face her. Although she kept her eyes on her hands, she could feel his aura as she felt his gaze. It made her feel small and insignificant. She wondered if he was angry at her for asking. Afterall, how could the death of one person compare to the death of an entire clan?

“ We move forward. We have to live. We have to strive to protect them. If we can’t protect their physical bodies, then the least we can do is protect their ideals. It doesn’t matter how much you cry or suffer, you have to live anyways. If you don’t, then it just means their deaths were in vain. Don’t waste the life they gave you.”

Hinata looked at Sasuke in surprise. She wasn’t expecting him to say so much to her. But she felt a sense of relief, as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. They weren’t words of sympathy or pity. There were no apologies nor were there empty condolences within the words he had spoken.

They were words from a person who understood her pain.

It had been their first conversation together since their childhood days, and it was the last conversation they had together before he had left the village for reasons that he wouldn’t disclose to anyone, other than his best friend, Naruto. Yet despite that, it was his words that had stuck with her the most. It was what had helped her get through Neji’s funeral, even though she had been forced to give a speech she did not want to give.

And it was his words that had woken her up.

Ever since that night, Hinata had devoted herself to training. Whether it was shinobi training, clan training, or her own personal studies, Hinata had decided to do it all if it meant that she would be able to fulfill Neji’s one wish. It would be her way of paying him back and making up for the sacrifice he had made with his life in order to protect hers.

The eradication of the Cursed Seal.

The Cursed Seal, which marked all Branch members within the Hyuga Clan, was a symbol used to indicate a lower status and acted as a chain that linked them to the Main House. It allowed the Main House to have absolute control over them, something that had caused Neji to develop hatred for her during their childhood days. It took many years for the two of them to mend their strained relationship. One of their goals that the two of them had decided upon when they had become closer to one another was to change the old customs within the clan.

The two of them were supposed to change the clan together. That had ended when he died, leaving Hinata by herself. But she had to keep moving forward. She had to keep their promise alive. So that was why she had decided to commit so hard in training. She wanted to have something to show for. She wouldn’t be able to face Neji otherwise. It was the only way.

However, in dedicating herself to fulfilling their wish, Hinata had neglected her friends.

“ Hey, you’re spacing out again.”

She felt a gentle shake as another one of her friends, Tenten this time, looked at her with concern. Tenten was the only other person who had felt the same pain, if not more so. Tenten had loved Neji. They were supposed to move out together once the war was over. But it was only an unfulfilled dream now.

“ Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind lately. I’m fine.”   Tenten shook her head in understanding. The other two, Sakura and Temari, who had been waiting for the three girls to come, beamed with joy once they saw everyone had finally arrived. They had planned to have a girls’ day together, something that was rare nowadays since everyone was busy with various jobs in their lives.

For Hinata, it was the first time she had gone out ever since Neji had died. She had spent countless months in seclusion, a result that came from constantly preoccupying herself with training. She was reluctant, but her sister, Hanabi, had forced her out of the house stating that she had to take a break every once and awhile. Normally, Hinata would have agreed.

However, she only saw it as a waste of time now.

Still, she decided that it was better to go along with everyone’s desire rather than try to force her way out. After all, she wasn’t intentionally trying to push away her friends. She was just trying to do all that she could do to make sure she could fulfill her dear cousin’s wish as soon as possible. But if her friends and sister wanted to see her once and awhile, then she would indulge it.

Before leaving with her friends, Hinata noticed a hawk soaring across the sky. It had headed towards the direction of the Hokage’s Office before disappearing into the distance. Before she could express outloud her curiosity, She could hear Tenten call out to her again. Tucking the thought away, she quickly joined the group before Ino could drag her again.

-----

By the time the girls had finished spending time together and left for the day, the sun had already begun to set. Despite this, the heat remained as scorching as it had midday. It did not help that it made her long, dark hair stick to her skin like hot sweltering glue. It made her feel uncomfortable. She wondered why her friends had picked such a hot day to see each other.

They had shopped and then ate an early dinner together. Although she had enjoyed their presence, Hinata felt that it was ultimately a waste of time. In her mind, it did not feel right to be wasting time leisurely like this. Not when there was still a goal to fulfill.  

She sighed.

Perhaps she really did need a break.

She looked up to the sky once more and noticed a hawk flying by again. It was the same one from earlier. Except this time it was flying towards the direction of Naruto’s house.  

Hinata quickly followed after it.

By the time she had reached Naruto’s home, the hawk had already disappeared. However, she could make out two figures. One was standing outside his windowsill with spiky blonde hair and cerulean eyes sporting orange pajamas, while the other stayed mostly hidden from view amongst the trees. She couldn’t quite make out the figure, but she knew they must have been important if they had made such an effort to stay hidden from view while the two of them were discussing something in private.

She was curious who Naruto was talking to, so Hinata stayed hidden as she watched from afar. Night had already come, so it made it even harder for her to see without the help of her dojutsu. She did not want to use the Byakugan though, in case they could sense her.

Suddenly, she felt the hidden figure turn towards her direction. Hinata tried to hide away, but it was too late.

A pair of obsidian eyes met her silvery ones.

For what felt like an eternity, they stared at each other. She wasn’t sure why he was here, but she could instantly recognize who he was. There was only one person in the world whose eyes were as dark as the moonless night.

Sasuke Uchiha.

His raven black hair had grown longer since the last time they met. It was difficult to make out, but she could tell that he wore a long black cape to hide his presence.

She was so surprised by his presence that she couldn’t help but murmur his name.

Just as she did, Sasuke quickly reverted his eyes back to Naruto. It seemed their friend hadn’t noticed their interaction with each other. They continued talking normally, although occasionally Sasuke would give her a quick glance before redirecting his attention back to Naruto.

Hinata knew she should have left as soon as she had been spotted by Sasuke. She knew whatever was transpiring between the two had nothing to do with her. She had a lot of things to do; there was training to be done at home.

Yet Hinata found herself unable to take a step.

She continued to stare at him. She continued to watch the man who had given her the words that she needed to hear when she felt as if the world did not understand the torment that she was going through. She continued to watch the man who was once considered an enemy, a monster that was born from the cycle of hatred acts for being born with the blood of the Uchiha clan.

Sasuke Uchiha was the man who had lost his entire family, a pain much greater than any eighteen year old boy should endure. He was the one who could understand her own grief and her own guilt. The only one who could give her the words she needed to hear once more, to confirm that the efforts she had painstakingly made throughout these months were good.

He was the one who she needed right now.

Hinata could see the two exchange their good-byes before Naruto closed his window for the night. As soon as he did, she tried to call out to Sasuke. She wanted to talk with him just once more before he left again. But just as soon as Naruto had left, Sasuke had already vanished from his spot as well.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp breeze pass through her. She could make out a black figure race past her. His eyes met hers again as they stared into each other before he finally disappeared into the forest.

A mere exchange of glances that lasted for only a second.

She didn’t feel satisfied with just that. Rather, she couldn’t feel satisfied. So using as much strength as she could, Hinata ran to follow him.

She ran and ran for what felt like ages. He was much too fast. She questioned whether he was really human. He was faster than any shinobi in the village, much faster than anyone she knew. When they had reached into an open field within the forest, Hinata was too tired to follow anymore. Instead, she yelled for him.

“ S-Sasuke-kun, please wait!” She screamed at the top of her lungs before finally collapsing onto her knees, hoping he would hear.

Before she could stand up again, she could feel a presence only a few inches away from where she kneeled on the grass.

“ What do you want?” His voice sounded much deeper than she had remembered. It felt blunt, yet held no malice nor annoyance. Rather he sounded distant like a stranger. Strangers that barely knew each other.  

In truth, Hinata wasn’t sure what she wanted from Sasuke. What was it that he provided that her friends couldn’t? She wasn’t the only one who had lost Neji. Tenten, Ino, Sakura, and Temari also lost him as well. He was their friend and comrade too. So why was it that Hinata continued to seek him out?

As soon as she had seen him, everything that she had done today had faded into oblivion. All the people she saw, all the conversations she had, had already faded into her memory. It was as if those things were insignificant compared to him. She wasn’t sure of the reasoning. She felt something unexplainable emerge within her. She didn’t know what to call these new emotions that had surfaced into her heart.

Perhaps it was because despite the others’ understanding and sympathy with losing Neji, none of them truly understood nor held the same level of relationship that Hinata had with her dear cousin. Neji may have been a friend, comrade, and lover for some of these people, but none of them had ever held the same familiarity that the two had with each other. He was more than just a cousin, he was her brother. He was her brother who had shared the same blood, the same training, and the same struggles experienced within the clan.  

Neji was the person who understood her the most.

And now here stood another man who also understood her. He understood her in a way that no one else could because he too had lost his brother as well. Perhaps it was because of this that Hinata wanted to see him. Perhaps it was why she so desperately seeked him out.

Because despite being merely acquaintances that were more like strangers, the two of them shared a unique connection that came from experiencing the death of a loved one. It was a connection that only the two of them could understand. Which was why Hinata had to try. She had to try to see him.

Even if it was just once more.

“ I...know this is a selfish request of mine, but...i-if it’s okay with you...I would like to see you again,” She asked between each breath.

Hinata slowly looked at the man towering before her. His cool expression gave away no emotion. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She wondered if it was a mistake to ask him. “ What good will that do? We aren’t friends, Hyuga. I have no interest in doing so either. I have my own things that I have to do. If you want to grieve then do so at your own expense. Don’t come to me to do it,”

She watched him turn his back towards her as he started getting ready to leave. A part of her knew he was right. She was being irrational again. They were not friends. They were essentially strangers. But then she remembered that day. She remembered his words. She remembered the relief, the release from her own guilt, even if it was only temporarily. She remembered the feeling that she had experienced when she found someone who had finally understood her. Yes, she was being irrational and selfish, but she felt so helpless and desperate that she had to try.

“ Please...Please, Sasuke-kun,” She whispered.

She begged him.  

She begged as tears started falling from her tired eyes.

But Sasuke was already gone. -----

Hinata wasn’t sure how she had managed to make it home. It was already four in the morning by the time she had arrived. To her surprise, neither her father nor the other clan members were there to berate her for coming home late. She was exhausted though, so she was glad for that. As soon as she had laid in bed, Hinata had fallen fast asleep.

She was still asleep when morning came. Even when the sun started to beam into her bedroom, Hinata still remained in bed. She felt mentally and physically exhausted from her exchange with Sasuke. It had been a mistake to ask him.

Until she heard a light tapping noise coming from her window.

Still feeling tired, Hinata groggily opened her window to see what had been making the noise. Staring back at her was a brown hawk with golden eyes. When she opened her window, the hawk flew to her desk. It dropped a small letter before resting in a space near the corner of the desk. After a few minutes of staring at the letter, Hinata finally grabbed it to read what was written inside.

If you want to talk, use the hawk as a messenger. I’ll be waiting. - Sasuke

That day, Hinata spent the whole day wondering in confusion what had transpired between them. She couldn’t understand the reasoning behind Sasuke’s actions. It was irrational though she wasn’t one to talk. However, it was only until nightfall, did she finally respond back to his letter.

Little did they both know, this would mark the beginning of what would become an abnormal relationship.

[lazylazyhowl]

miscue (of snakes and cherry blossoms - sasusaku)

miscue (noun, verb) – failing to respond to a cue; an inadvertent mistake

[“They must call her foolish behind her back, but she supposes there are worse things to be.” Sakura. Sasuke. An open window, and saving the other. Post-war fluffy angst. (But not angsty fluff, no).]

AO3 Link

—

There’s no denying that her office is cluttered. Sakura tries to keep it tidy, but the paperwork that steadily increases together with her responsibilities as Head Medic isn’t so forgiving.

“Can I open the window?”

For a moment, there’s a stab of self-consciousness that there are smells her colleagues might have been too tactful to point out.

“Go ahead, Sasuke-kun.”

Without moving her gaze from her work, she tracks the faint signature of his chakra as he moves across the room to fiddle with the lock. Sai was in charge of keeping watch of him tonight, so they should have some leeway.

The scent of dew and earth fills her nostrils with the slight breeze that enters her office. Beneath her coat, a small wave of goosebumps climbs up her arms from the chilly air. She can hear the rustle of the trees and the lively chirping of birds returning to their nests.

“It’s a full moon tonight.” He announces with his back to her and face tilted up to said celestial body.

He’s undoubtedly losing weight, and she doesn’t know what more she can do to help. His back seems small in those loose-fitting clothes, she thinks, against the orange-blue backdrop of early evening outside. It’s a strange thing to observe when he’s always been tall gait and broad shoulders to her.

She can’t see what he does from her seat, so she simply returns to the papers on her desk with an acknowledging hum. Jotting down the last few notes on the patient case file, she closes the folder and sets it aside before cracking open a new one.

“It’s already been a month, huh,” she says. “Time flies.”

“It felt longer actually.”

“Oh, I can see how.” She checks to make sure she’s getting correctly the kanji for the name of this thirty-year-old patient. Quite a rare spelling. “So much has been happening.”

“I lost track of time,” he says after a bit.

“Right, I need to get a clock for your room!” She grabs her notepad to scribble down a reminder.

“No, I mean-” There’s a slow headshake in his tone “-the moon, it’s beautiful.”

She pauses mid letter despite herself and smiles, knowing he would never mean it like that. He’s always been clueless in these matters. It’s quite endearing.

“Is it ever ugly?”

In the unassuming silence the follows where he says nothing, she finishes writing with a firm press of her pen.

A clock would be good for him. The council is demanding he be drugged up half the time of a day, as if sealing his chakra down to half what normal shinobi needs to move about wasn’t enough. Absolutely ludicrous! With his wounds healing, she’s also run out of excuses for the daily visits that probably used to help him orientate, too.

“I guess not,” he finally says with hints of a chuckle, his shoulders slouching a little more.

Putting away the notepad, she resumes her work again. The key to optimism is to focus on what can be done, rather than what cannot. Being with Naruto taught her as much.

The test results for this patient is fairly straight-forward. Just malnutrition and lack of sleep, a combination not entirely uncommon these days with so much work still needs to be done in Konoha.

They were going through something close to an upheaval. Her shishō has been pushing for changes left and right, sometimes rather ham-fistedly (but with no less cunning), taking advantage of the smoke and debris of war that has yet to settle.

For all the newness of the situation, even the chaos is beginning to bleed into routine after a month. Adaptation is a truly amazing thing.

She prescribes the man two types of supplements and makes some additional notes for his discharge tomorrow.

“I lose track of time staring at it,” Sasuke says.

“Ah, me too.”

“Hn.”

“I look at it sometimes when I can’t sleep.” It was in fact the only thing that got her through many sleepless nights for a while, but her words sound trite to her own ears, like some blatant ingratiation to force a connection with him.

She doesn’t care to look for the hints, but she does wonder if Sasuke has taken offense. He’s never had patience for people who pretended to understand, and she’s still not sure she does. Perhaps she would never.

“Aa, I end up watching it most nights.”

“I’m sorry, I wish I could give you some sleeping aid.” He’s rapidly developing monstrous tolerance for their tranquilizers, and she can only worry for his constitution after this is over.

“No. It’s nothing I haven’t been through. Some of the drugs Orochimaru gave me before also made sleep impossible. There wasn’t much to do outside of training and traveling.”

“Right.” But she’s not sure what is, because to be honest everything he just said is all wrong in her mind. He was barely over thirteen.

“The lulls in between are the worst,” she says noncommittally, but it’s perhaps the one thing they could agree on—he and she, both being single-minded people.

“The moon was there no matter where I was. Wasn’t hard to form a habit.”

She keeps her eyes on the paperwork but fails to concentrate on the words between her hands. Her throat is suddenly dry. She hasn’t realized they could just talk about his time away from Konoha like this. She thought she wasn’t allowed to know about the him of that period. He’s proven as much when he left her on that bench all those years ago.

But maybe that night has never held much significance to him. Maybe from his point of view, he only did the sensible thing, what was probably best for her, if not himself, and she’s the only one who’s still sore, who treats it like the landmine it’s not.

“All those times, it never occurred to me. That’s…beauty.”

Something in the movement of the air tugs at her attention then. She looks up and gapes at the sight of him standing precariously tall on the edge of the windowsill.

“S-Sasuke-kun!”

She runs to him in an instant, knocking over some folders on her way over. Even one arm down, he turns around on the narrow ledge with grace not unexpected of a shinobi. Still, her heart skips an ugly beat.

His inky hair is tousled, bleeding into the cooling sky; his flawless skin paler than the glaring full moon at his back. Mismatched eyes unblinking, he watches her for explanation.

“You need to get down from there.”

“Why?”

She’s sure she had a good reason, but she can only come up with, “It’s dangerous.”

“We’re on the first floor.”

“I-I know.”

But something about the him right now unsettles her.

“Just- Get down, please.”

He considers her words for a moment and dips his head a fraction. “Alright.” And he turns around and leaps out before her wide eyes. She only knows to reach for him on pure instinct.

“Wait!!”

.

“Oi Sakura.” The baleful barb in his voice startles her as she hastily releases her grip on his ankle. He pushes himself off the ground to glare at her over his shoulder with a coal-black eye, looking about to pop a vein. There’s a heated flush to his cheeks that matches the redness of his nose from having fallen face-first into the grass and dirt outside.

“I-I’m so sorry Sasuke-kun!”

She jumps over and kneels next to him as he sits up, green chakra glowing over the minor cuts on his face. He’s as good as new in an instant.

“What was that for?” he asks as he accepts the handkerchief that she meekly holds out for him. It takes the better part of her control to keep from flinching where their fingers lightly brush.

She breaks eye contact from the intensity of his stare and considers lying before telling the truth. “Well, I-you scared me.”

“I scared you.”

“N-no!” She snaps her gaze back to him. “Not you. More like…what you did.”

“Hn.” His shuttered tone says he’s zeroed in on an instant he thinks she’s referring to, and she clambers to clarify.

“You leapt out the window.”

He huffs, eyes turning hard. “It takes more than half a meter drop to hurt me. I’m low on chakra, Sakura. Not crippled.”

He stands and dusts himself off, no longer looking her in the eye. Well, if he wasn’t offended before, he certainly is now. It’s well-deserved, really, but somehow, she finds it easier to breathe.

She rises and tugs at his empty sleeve before he can walk away. “I’m not scared of you, Sasuke-kun.”

She speaks for no one else, but this he has to know. She has to make sure he knows, because it’s probably the insecurity that pervades him these days. That he courts unrest and dissension. That he’s that something to fear, and be shunned and left in isolation and neglect.

That he’s somehow less human than the next boy.

She looks into his eyes until she sees the hardness melt into resignation.

“But I still scared you.”

Her heart quickens again. “That’s because you jumped-”

“-out the window, you’ve mentioned,” he says with an eye roll and something between agitation and a sigh.

There’s a sting in the corner of her eyes she hopes is just reaction to the chilly wind. “You don’t understand!”

“Aa, I’m still waiting.”

“It- You-” Her voice is starting to crack. How she loathes that she’s always showing him this lovelorn, pitiful part of her that she knows he doesn’t care for. She feels eight-year-old again before him, small and bumbling, an unaccomplished mess, and he just stood back and watched her in all his dignified apathy.

“Sakura.” His hand grips at her shoulder firmly, a dash of concern in his countenance. She blinks at the watery sheen in her eyes, wondering momentarily, where he still gets his strength from.

“I thought you were going to disappear.” At his wide, blank stare, she averts her face, her tears spilling anew. She’s aware her words are as silly as she feels.

That stillness to his demeanor, that foreign tranquility—like silence, like rippleless water. It occurs to her sometimes that maybe he’s making peace. That he’s given up before the fight even begins.

Then his suddenly far-too-baggy shirt fluttered in a gust of strong wind, lifting to reveal a vulnerability of skin and bones, the white bandages underneath and stark black seals carved all over his body. And the next moment, he leapt.

“Right then…I was…afraid…” The massive leaf canopy that hangs over them rustles wildly. She picks at the hem of her coat, looking everywhere but at him.

He feels empty and faded when he’s like this. Calm. Placid. Like he could be gone if she blinked too slowly. And then she’d wonder if the reason for this all is that she’s actually just another one who can’t forgive, another one who can only associate him with tumult and discord, despite all her vocal averment for his goodness.

His grip slipping from her shoulder draws her gaze back to him. He’s looking down to where she’s holding a fistful of his empty sleeve, and he wraps his hand over hers, the calluses on his palm grazing her knuckles with such gentleness, it hurts.

She lets go and steps back, never expecting him to step forward and pulls her against his chest.

“S-Sasuke-kun!?”

She flushes. Her body goes rigid as the weight of his chin rests over the top of her head and his large hand fits behind her neck. Her arms are crushed between their chests, and she smells medicine and grass; the spice of detergent in his clothes, the saltiness of the gauzes beneath.

“Sakura.” His voice thrums deep against her forehead, through the skin of his throat. “I made up my mind, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”

“O-oh, that’s…great.”

Nothing is said for a while, and they remain in that position. He shows no sign of budging, and she’s not sure she has ever had it in her to break away from him.

“You’re worried about me.”

His scent, the coolness of his skin. His faint, beating heart against her thundering one. She chokes when she feels his thumb on her earlobe.

“Right?”

“Y-yeah.”

“And you’re not afraid of me.”

“I’m not.” She shakes her head the best she can in his embrace.

“Promise me one thing.”

“O-kay.”

His chest expands in a deep breath.

“Don’t go anywhere, either.”

.

Ah, how sly, Sasuke-kun.

.

She curls her fingers into the front of his shirt and nods against his chest. “I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

.

.

.

.

Sasuke adjusts the angle of his chin against her headband, the metal sapping heat from his skin on contact. Sakura’s grown wonderfully, he thinks, so able and strong; might walk so far out of his grasp, no dōjutsu in the world can find her for him, when all he’s known of her for so long are naïve smiles and spindly arms and legs.

When they finally part, he wipes gingerly at the corner of her eye. They both know that this is in no way fair, because they are both the sort that looks far ahead, and even though she is certain to keep her words, he might never be able to keep his.

But the heat of her breaths breathes something tenacious into his chest, seeping into his lungs, and bones and marrows.

And for at the very least tonight, he decides he will not be going anywhere far away from her.

[manikas-whims]

Sasusaku prompt 93

A/N: Sorry it took me so long. I haven't written SasuSaku in ages and my writing is still kinda rusty.

So bear with me dear anon.

And prepare yourself for some angst and comfort..:3

Prompt: “Losing you was the most unbearable pain I’ve ever felt.”

Title: Promises

Ship: Sasuke Uchiha X Sakura Haruno

Words: 1938

Rating: T

Sitting on a couch in the lavish, new apartment that he was relocated to, Sasuke Uchiha looked anywhere but at the unexpectedly quiet, pink haired kunoichi right in front of him. For a brief moment, his wandering mismatched orbs met the obsidian ones of a pale guy named Sai, who is supposed to keep an eye on him for his month long house arrest. The weirdly stoic man stared at him from the far end of the living room, where he was standing comfortably with a sketch pad and a brush in hand. Sasuke averted his attention right back to his ex-teammate. Ever since his pardon (courtesy of Kakashi) for his many unwarranted crimes during his years as a missing S class nin, he had noticed the subtle change in her behavior. Its understandable that they aren’t the same teens who were put together under team 7 yet Sakura was never this guarded around him. It was almost as if she was trying to keep their encounters to the bare minimum, only stopping by to do a quick checkup on his healing wounds and his lost arm. Usually Naruto was around them to diffuse the awkwardness in such situations but unfortunately, the hyperactive blond wasn’t available that day. Something to do with him bidding farewell to his friends from the neighboring lands.

There could be numerous reasons pertaining to her silent treatment but Sasuke didn’t have the patience to mull over all of them and figure it out by himself. The only other option he was left with was to confront her about it. But having hurt her more than once due to his resolve for revenge and revolution, he didn’t know how to strike a normal conversation with her. The last time he uttered something to her was at the Valley of the End, where he had sincerely apologized to her. From then on, it had been just her looking after him at the hospital, narrating fascinating tales about her experiences as a medical ninja whilst he barely nodded his head.

Sasuke sighed. It had always been a one-sided effort— him paying no interest to anything other than his goals as she worked hard on maintaining their delicate bond. But he didn’t want things to remain that way any longer. He didn’t want his soul to stay shrouded in the darkness associated with his clan. If not more, he atleast owed her just as much importance as she gave to their every second spent together. She was generous enough to forgive him for everything he’d done and accepted him with her warm smile. She had let her tormented heart trust him yet again so easily that he wanted to become a man worthy of her forgiveness.

“Sakura,” he tried, hoping his query will reach across her by the shear intensity of his gaze.

The said woman however, didn’t spare him a glance. She was too focused on patching a partially healed cut on the left side of his lower abdomen. “Sasuke-kun,” she replied simply, signifying that she had heard him, her other palm gliding along his bare torso in search of any injuries she might have missed before.

He was glad that even after years of separation she didn’t drop the endearing suffix whenever she addressed him. To a stranger it may seem like nothing but to him, the small gesture meant that she still regarded him with the same level of admiration she did years ago. However, her response didn’t help steer the conversation anywhere.

Sasuke shut his mouth tight, his tongue pressing against the inner wall of his cheek in annoyance. Had it been any other time where she wasn’t mad at him for reasons unknown, she’d have said a few more words, making this whole thing a lot simpler for the both of them. But that day, she just wasn’t in the mood to waste her energy in idle chitchat.

With the examination done, Sakura placed her palms gently on either side of his face and angled it up. A pair of onyx and mauve clashed with refreshing emeralds and Sasuke gulped, watching her send spasms of her soothing chakra through his ocular network. The strain in his eyes reduced comparatively and Sakura let go of his face.

“There. Now you won’t have to stay in Konoha after your probation ends.” The words slipped out of her lips absentmindedly and her pupils dilated in shock. Probably because she wasn’t supposed to say that directly to him.

Sasuke took in a long breath, his calm demeanor replaced by slight irritation. Was that what it was about? Him leaving the village as soon as he was back in shape? He didn’t want to believe that his friend and lover since childhood wasn’t speaking to him over something as insignificant as this. Throughout his trial, the five Kages as well as their subordinates discussed various forms of punishment for him but it was he himself who chose that in the end. He pledged to travel around the allied nations, aid each land in repairing all the damage and inconvenience he had caused as a miscreant and even handle other wrongdoers if he happened upon them during the journey. It was his first step towards redemption— a suggestion that the jury readily agreed to because everyone was excited to give orders to and make Sasuke Uchiha dance to their whims. And so, of all the people he’s acquainted with in the Hidden Leaf Village, he had hoped that his former team would be supportive of his decisions from then on.

“Sakura..” he mumbled, unsure of how to proceed. How was he supposed to convince someone who had always readily understood him without him having to explain a word of it?

“Don’t..” she said, bringing a hand up to stop him, “You have no idea.”

He motioned his lips to try and make her realize how necessary this was for him yet she shook her head and went on, “Do you know how hard it is when your genuine feelings are shrugged off as a mere teenage crush? Do you know how difficult it is when everyone expects you to give up on your very own emotions? Do you!?�� her tone escalated and she lowered her head to obscure the fresh tears falling down her eyes, “No you don’t. You do not understand it Sasuke-kun, you can’t! No one can..”

He bit the insides of his cheeks, his only hand twitching to wipe her tears away yet he resisted the urge, afraid of her reaction to his touch— to the touch of the same man who had harmed her on more occasions than protect her..

“Losing you was the most unbearable pain I’ve ever felt.” She stated with a sob, tilting her head up to let him witness the honesty in her tearful gaze. “I can’t lose you again..”

It was true that he didn’t understand. He wasn’t able to comprehend how a woman as benevolent, loving and beautiful as herself came to give her heart to someone so malign like him. He knew it was rude of him to ask for more of her when she had always given her best but he had to do this. She could hate him for the time being– god how he wished she’d have a sliver of hatred for him hidden somewhere beneath all those thick layers of her affection but she didn’t. She was too good to have any sorts of negative emotions towards him.

“I must do thi–”

“Stop lying to me, Sasuke-kun.” She cut him off, a bitter smile gracing her cherry lips, “Just admit that I’m not enough for you to stay. That I never will be..”

For the first time since his return to Konoha, Sasuke’s composed countenance wavered, shock momentarily flitting across his face. Subconsciously, he covered the dormant cursed seal on his neck and turned his head to the side. He had always considered her the small but strong flicker of joy in his rather desolate life so hearing her belittle herself irked him. Had he known that his plans about the travel were causing her this much distress and self-doubt, he would’ve talked to her sooner.

“I admit it.” He spoke, turning his head back to flash her an earnest gaze. “I admit that I can never understand the anguish of your heart. And I do acknowledge your indelible love for me. I’m grateful, Sakura..” He said, wishing somehow his words would express the sincerity in them. “But I can’t answer your feelings right now. I..I’m not worthy of them..”

“Sasuke-kun!” she literally yelled in disappointment. It was her turn to get irritated at his self-loathing. “I told you that I don’t hold you responsible for any of that. We both hurt each-other and..I have put those happenings far behind.”

“Have you now?” he asked pointedly and she bit her bottom lip hesitantly. “Have you, Sakura? If so, then why won’t you let me do the same?”

Her lips quivered then, all her pent up fury and agony unleashing like a wildfire as she broke down into loud sobs. Sasuke noticed how shaky her feet were and immediately wrapped his lone arm around her waist, helping her settle down on the couch next to him. But she paid no heed to his act for she was too busy weeping and wiping her tears, struggling with the sudden shattering of her emotions. And Sasuke watched. He made sure to capture the whole scenario with the power of his eyes..to have a recorded evidence of how much he had bruised the heart of the only woman who had truly and unselfishly cared for him..loved him!

“I..what if you don’t retur–”

His palm instantly clamped over her tear-soaked lips, desisting her from finishing that ominous sentence. This was what he wanted to bring an end to— people actively doubting him. He wanted to prove that he was way above his past, hateful self. He wanted people to trust him like they used to when he was still a willing citizen of this village. But most of all, he wanted to restore that blinding faith she had in him. And for that, he needed to leave. It was mandatory for him to pay the price of sins and redeem himself.

“I will never cause you misery again. I swear this on my pride as an Uchiha. I won’t tarnish your your soul any more than this. So please..have some faith in me.” He spoke as tenderly as he could, reaching out his hand to hold her dainty palm in his calloused one and gave a squeeze in assurance.

The glassy eyes of the pinkette faltered at his words, a mix of shock and pride swimming in them. And just like that, she allowed her head to nod slowly, a timid smile curving upon her lips. She allowed her scarred self to have faith in him.

“I’ll be back to you. And then, we can figure work out this unspoken whatever I have for you..” he added, as if to solidify the foundation of his previous statements.

More tears cascaded down her cheeks— happy tears! And she squeezed his palm in return. “Then, I’ll wait for you. Always..”

Silence took over the room yet again, the two young adults exchanging their sentiments through their meaningful gazes. They were too lost in their own little world to even take note of the pale, ex-root nin observing them the whole time, capturing those sequence of events not just in his memory but also on a fresh page of his sketchpad.

A/N: Hope it was upto your expectations..:)

Request SasuSaku oneshots from this Prompt List

Until Next Time...

~Manika

[mavda]

Beast Tamers

Ch.1 |  Ch.2 | Ch.3 | Ch.4(1) | Ch.4(2) | Ch.5(1) | Ch.5(2) | Ch.5(3) | Ch.5(4) | Ch.6(1) | Ch.6(2) | Ch.6(3) | Ch.7(1) | Ch.7(2) | Ch.7(3) | Ch.7(4) | Ch.7(5) | Ch.8(1) |

Ch.8: Without you (2)

Lord Minato finds Hinata crouched over her husband. With chakra veins popping out near her eyes, using her technique to release and control the unruly chakra inside Naruto's body. Her eyes scan Naruto and her hands move steady and fast, without missing a beat.  

"Lady Hinata."

She keeps on working without raising her eyes, "Yes?" 

Minato sits beside Naruto and steals a glance to the plate near the lady, half-eaten. Minato sits silent, then looks over Naruto’s body. His son is starting to look a little leaner now, although nothing to worry about, Sakura reassured him… yet. His eyes travel then from the hands pressing over Naruto’s chakra points to reach Lady Hinata.

“You haven’t eaten.”

Hinata presses her lips together, she keeps on releasing chakra points. “I did.” She doesn’t look away, and decidedly doesn’t look to the plate she knows is half-full near her. Her appetite is almost non-existent now, but out of fear of people worrying over her she hasn’t shared her situation. It seems her time’s up. 

Minato stares at his son’s face. They have talked about Lady Hinata, him and Shikamaru, Sakura, even Kiba and Sai. Out of respect and worry they have let her do as she wanted, but surely there is a limit to this, too.

“You look like you’ll faint any minute now,” he shares, without a hint of accusation in his voice. 

She doesn’t respond, Minato knows this will be received with opposition so he looks to his son for strength. “I will have to ask you to stop using your technique on Naruto until you regain your strength.”

Hinata stops mid-movement, feels too shocked to look up. “W-what?”

“You look like you’ll fall over any minute now, it is not healthy.”

Hinata sits on her heels, brings her hand to her thighs and looks up after releasing her technique. She feels hurt, betrayed. She’s helping.

She’s helping… right?

“N-naruto-”

“Would agree with me and you know it.” Minato doesn’t look at her, his eyes are glued to his son, “when has he ever wanted to put you under distress?” 

Hinata opens her mouth to answer back, say something and fight for her right to help her husband in any way she can. But her lower lip trembles, “I-” she shudders. 

“I know,” Minato says, stronger this time, “that you are doing this to help.” He looks in her direction, but doesn’t look at her, “but… don’t put yourself under… this amount of stress. I know you’re worried, Lady Hinata, but-”

“It’s b-been s-six days…”

Minato nods, slow, lazy, because he doesn’t want to agree. “I’m not saying you can’t do it, all I’m saying is take care of yourself first and then-”

“Does this… does t-this help?” 

Minato takes a moment to choose his words, because Lady Hinata is so obviously under stress that he wants to-

“At all?” she adds.

“Yes,” he answers immediately and then regrets it the second after. “It helps in the long run, yes, but now… now it’s just his body making sense of the mess I left inside of him.” He doesn’t want to even mention the idea that by releasing the chakra points inside of him it might cause Naruto’s body to have a harder time to acclimate to the swirl of chakras inside. He wonders, but he hasn’t shared that with anyone but Shikamaru. They don’t know though. They don’t know so they don’t say anything.

Hinata nods to herself. Thank the gods. At least… something. 

The days have come and gone and come and gone and she just wants this to be over. The hope she started with, that Naruto would wake the next day, and then the next day, and then… her hope is dwindling and she's scared and yet she doesn't say much because if she speaks it aloud then she's making it real. 

And she can't handle that. 

"What a-about Naruto's g-godfather?" 

"He's coming."

Hinata frowns, he's been coming for a while now. "W-when will he-"

"A month if he's fast, if everything goes according to plan."

Minato can feel Lady Hinata tensing, without looking at her, without being close to her. He knows. She's imagining herself waiting for that long of a time… he understands.

"Lady Mito…" Hinata says in a daze, her brain is just trying to find a solution to this whole ordeal, desperate to find an end to all of this. "She s-said she could t-take the Be-"

"It's too dangerous." Minato shakes his head. Gods, he has gone through this with Mito enough already, she shouldn't have said any of this to the lady. Especially now.

Lady Hinata bites her lips in an attempt to stop herself from speaking, but even Minato can see that his answer is far from ideal. "She shouldn't- she shouldn't have talked to you about that."

"I-if it could h-help…"

"Lady Hinata… Mito, she- this whole scenario is so uncertain and its cons surpass the pros so heavily that the clan has decided not to go for it. It is not worth it." 

His wording is awful, he realizes, the moment Lady Hinata's face hardens and she looks down. So Minato keeps on talking. 

"There is a chance, just a chance, this could work. But then what? Sealing the Beast inside Naruto again would kill him and we don't know whether Mito would make it until a new vessel is born. And if it doesn't? There is a chance it doesn't work, too, and then Mito dies and Naruto dies because his body won't be able to take the Beast again, and there is no new vessel and we have the Nine-Tail Beast roaming around, without a chance of controlling it." His breathing is labored and his voice has risen in volume and Minato hates the thoughts that now swirl inside of his head. "And… that doesn't even matter because Naruto won't accept her offer anyways."

Hinata bites down the need to say that now Naruto can't say whether he accepts the offer or not, because Lord Minato's reaction is enough to tell her that they have talked about this before. And Naruto has surely made his decision clear before. 

Hinata begins to think that maybe she somewhat understands Lord Minato's resignation back when they came back from the arena. A conclusion to the many emotions that flow within when facing this situation. So little can be done that resignation is all that's left. 

Hinata looks at Naruto, who sleeps peacefully, and caresses his blonde hair. "Will he d-die when they take the B-Beast from him then?" 

"No," Minato brings his head up, lets it fall back, "I mean, now. If we took the Beast now, or say, five years from now, he would have a healthy although shortened life. But it just… don’t think too much about it, please, Naruto won’t do it and,” he breathes out, remembers the many discussions late into the night with his son. The hushed whispers, the pleas. “It is dangerous for him, he won’t be able to go through with another full sealing of the Beast.”

Hinata thinks of Lady Mito, of her statements, and then about the information Naruto has shared with her regarding him as a Beast Tamer, “because he’s a m-man?”

“No.” Minato concentrates on a frayed thread on his clothes, “his lifespan is shorter when compared to a female vessel, yes, but whichever case, no vessel has ever been able to withstand sealing the Nine-Tails twice.”

“But L-Lady Mito-”

“She’s a special case,” Minato sighs, “she… her husband was a genius and he basically restored the energy she had spent sealing the Nine-Tails.”

Hinata frowns and stares and her mind is trying to process this information. “You c-can?”

“Not us, not anybody that has tried it, either. Not me, not my master, no one. We have the knowledge, we just can’t put it into practice, and I will say it now, do not hope for that to work. Mito’s husband was in a league of his own.” Minato knows, holding those parchments where the technique was written down, with careful annotations to whoever would read it in the future. It looked like a gift. It’s a mockery. “Mito married Hashirama Senju, Lady Hinata.”

Hinata can’t help the shock on her face. The strongest man the current world had seen, the man that stopped the war between clans fighting over the Beasts. The man that handled the Nine-Tails without having to use a vessel.

"I didn't-"

"It is not a secret, but it's not something that's easily found either. He… he had a gift with chakra manipulation and his techniques… he just could do it, and he did it. And even with that, undergoing the sealing of the Nine-Tails again could kill her. It's just not worth it."

"You… said, you had t-the technique w-written down…"

"Believe me, Lady Hinata," Minato feels he could laugh out loud at this, "we have tried everything to see if we could use it. It didn't. It won't. Please… just do not think about it as a possibility."

They remain in silence then, and Hinata drags her fingers over Naruto’s cheek. A caress. 

"We have to k-keep treating Naruto with the H-Hyuga t-technique."

"My lady-"

"It doesn't h-have to be me. Neji… he's still a-around, is he not?"

⁂⁂⁂

Neji follows a man called Sai to a room deep into the compound. Close to the one where Lady Hinata rested back when he was escorting her. 

She waits for him with her back straight, her eyes fixed to the floor. 

"Lady Hinata," Neji greets.

"Plase t-take a seat."

There are few explanations and even fewer glances from her. She explains that he will have to keep close to her, as all he sees from now on is confidential. He nods and keeps quiet, and Lady Hinata says everything she had to say. 

"Have you… h-have you been w-well?"

Neji can't help the smile that tries to creep up on him. "Yes, Lady Hinata. I was able to find work in the outer compounds, I have been able to live without worry while I was away." 

Hinata keeps her face blank, but the tone in her voice, the way she has to force her eyes to keep away from him. He's glad. 

The sliding door opens and Sai enters, a letter in his hands. Neji frowns and even Hinata shows signs of surprise. 

"A servant came to give this to you, my lady, it's addressed directly."

Hinata cocks her head in confusion. She has never received a letter while she was inside the Uzumaki compound. She doesn't remember ever receiving a letter while she was in the Hyuga compound either. 

Neji half stands, one knee on the floor. "My lady."

Sai gives him a glance, but doesn't do more. 

Hinata takes the letter in her hands and Neji catches the seal on the letter. He stands, "My lady," and Sai grabs him by the collar. 

“I would advise you to keep seated.”

But Neji can’t keep his eyes from the letter. “My lady,” he struggles, but Sai doesn’t move, “my lady if you would please hand me the letter.”

Hinata frowns and looks at Neji with growing frustration, “It is a-addressed to m-me.” 

“Yes, but,” Neji places his hands in Sai’s shoulders, in an attempt to let him know he means no harm, that he is not a threat, “then, if you could hand it to Lord Minato, to Lord Shikamaru, even, just- please-”

Hinata can’t explain the growing need inside of her to go against whatever Neji has asked her to do. A mixture of late rebellion and the need for something to just go how she wants it to go without worrying about anything else. She opens the letter in between Neji’s pleas, “Sai,” and now she has more questions than ever, “let N-Neji go.”

Sai lets Neji free but the man stands there, watching as Hinata moves her eyes across the message, realizing who sent it and why. Neji can only think of how much this rests on Lord Minato’s and Lord Shikamaru’s shoulders, they ought to have done a better job. 

Hinata stares at the letter, looks at it from top to bottom, turns the page and plays with the seal, “What… what d-does this m-mean?”

Neji sits on the floor again, “I think you should talk with Lord Minato first, Lady Hinata.” 

“Well, I’m a-asking y-you.”

Neji remains silent and Hinata doesn’t know what comes over her again, but there is so much anger inside of her, and the letter in between her hands makes her so confused she knows if she doesn’t get an answer now... “It’s- it’s an o-order.”

Both Neji and Sai steal a glance at her, but then Sai stares back at him and Neji tries his best to concoct some sort satisfactory explanation regarding-

“N-now.”

It takes Neji two seconds to remember where it all started, “Lord Naruto received a letter from Lord Hiashi and he asked for my help.”

There, enough of an explanation. 

“Did you… did you c-copy my handwriting?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Lord Naruto requested my help.”

“...why?”

“He… he did not want for you to feel burdened.”

Hinata could ask again what he meant by that, but it’s obvious. As she read the letter, as she heard Neji answering her questions. Her father wanted to know information regarding the Uzumaki clan, information regarding her relationship with Naruto, information regarding how soon she thought she could bear an heir.

What was strange was her father letting her go without a word. She didn’t… she didn’t think twice about it, on the one hand it made sense, he had never cared too much about his daughters, so Hinata had thought he would ask a favor of her years from now, but… of course he wouldn’t, and yet she didn’t care. She had felt glad he had cut communication with her. 

He hadn’t.

But because Naruto saw her relationship with her father he had kept her away from it. 

“Sai… please g-guide Neji to his r-room.”

The men leave and Hinata reads the letter again, folds it and puts it in its envelope. She walks to the room where Naruto is immediately after.

⁂⁂⁂

    Lord Minato accepts the letter without a word and when Hinata asks him about it he answers without doubt.

    “Naruto… He didn’t want you to keep in contact with your father if it wasn’t good for you, so he called for Neji, asked some questions and then decided that all letters from your father would go through him first. I guess… this whole ordeal has made keeping track of things more difficult and without Naruto overseeing things...”

    “I understand.” 

    Lord Minato puts the letter away. “If the letters were different than what they were he would have given them to you directly, ask for forgiveness… it just…”

They were never letters in which he cared for her, Hinata realizes. She nods.

“Will you answer the letters from now on?”

    “No… let’s have N-Neji keep a-answering them.”

    Hinata can feel Lord Minato’s eyes on her, “I am sorry we kept this from you.”

    “No… I really u-understand.”

    “Naruto, he…”

    “Please,” Hinata closes her eyes. She knows. She knows. 

    Lord Minato keeps quiet until Neji arrives, Sai in tow. 

    Naruto lies on his futon and Hinata rises to move away from him, leaving a space for Neji to kneel beside him. “Y-you already know h-how to do this, s-so…”

    Neji gives Lord Minato a bow before kneeling. Lord Naruto looks leaner than before, and Neji feels somewhat distraught at seeing him so defenseless. A man who seemed to be able to move mountains, now unable to wake up. 

    Leaving Lady Hinata behind. 

    Neji activates his technique, chakra veins popping around his eyes and then he stops immediately, whips his head around to stare at Lady Hinata, who looks at him back filled with confusion.

    “N-Neji?”

    Neji turns back, concentrates his technique on Lady Hinata’s body, then does a search around them, the room, the building, the gardens, the whole inner compound. Right now, in the room, there is only him, Lord Minato, Lady Hinata and Sai guarding outside. Whatever he says won’t be heard by anyone else. And yet when he turns -his technique released- he whispers.

    “Lady Hinata… you’re pregnant.”

[sns-tropes]

heart in your hands: ch11

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6,

Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10

chapter summary: on tonight's nine o'clock news: team seven has emotional constipation

pairing: sasuke/naruto (ninja!verse) post-698

rating: Mature

warnings: angst, hurt/comfort

A/N: i haven't posted in forever don't hate me. this one is a little short but i'll be posting again very soon. sorry for the angst.

- jeni

Naruto blinks awake blearily. It’s a gloomy morning, there’s no sun streaming in. It might rain today. He looks to his side and Sasuke is awake, just staring at the ceiling above them quietly. Naruto doesn’t think it’s a troubled look. It seems pretty neutral. He’s aware that he maybe acted a little clingy with Sasuke last night. He was beyond exhausted, so he feels like he can’t really be held accountable for anything he said or did. Even if it might have annoyed Sasuke, he doesn’t seem bothered by it now, after everything. 

Sasuke looks like he’s thinking really hard about something. Naruto scoots closer, making Sasuke look at him. Sasuke winces a little, not quite sure if he should speak up. 

“I want to tell you something. I did something without your consent.” 

Naruto’s brow furrows in confusion. “What are you talking about?” Naruto scoots in even closer, concern drawn on his expression. It’s worrisome. Everything with Sasuke is potentially worrisome.  

Sasuke’s eyes fall from Naruto’s. His intentions for this conversation are good ones. He’s trying to accomplish something here. But this is hard. This is too difficult to open the subject. Because even though they’ve got used to so much together and have experienced this new dynamic between them, there’s still a lot of things that Sasuke thinks they’re in the dark about.  

They don’t know how to do a relationship. They never knew how to anything other than fight. Everything is still new even when it’s not. But Sasuke is trying. He just doesn’t want this to go in the wrong direction. 

“I looked into your dreams the other night.” He regrets it the moment the words leave his mouth. The old him would have suggested Naruto simply get over it. But things are so much different now. Naruto’s eyes widen in brief realization that Sasuke means that he saw  that  dream. Sasuke’s heart beat quickens in his chest and he’s experiencing something rare. Something that he doesn’t usually feel. He thinks it might be fear. He doesn’t have a first instinct unfortunately. He doesn’t know what Naruto is thinking. And poking around in his head any more than he already has will just make it worse.  

Naruto sits up a little away from him and looks in the other direction. Sasuke can’t tell if he’s angry or sad or what, but something in Sasuke hurts at the sight. 

“What did you see?” Naruto says numbly. 

“Enough.” 

Naruto huffs out a defeated breath, that same stress from last night radiating off of him. Sasuke eyes his prosthetic arm wrapped up in those white bandages. Naruto rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Sasuke waits. 

“It’s pathetic isn’t it?” Naruto rasps out, voice rough and thick with sleep. “You’re right here. Living in my apartment with me. And I-” Naruto closes his mouth. He stops himself. Sasuke doesn’t want to push too much. He doesn’t want to scare Naruto away. 

“You’re afraid.” Sasuke suggests softer than he’s ever spoke to him before. 

Naruto shakes his head no, eyes shut, throat tight.  

“I’m- I’m terrified.” He admits begrudgingly.  

“ Why ?” 

Naruto laughs bitterly, sounding like he’s trying not to cry. “Track record.” 

And Sasuke supposes that he’s right. That’s what Sasuke has always done. He always runs away from the things that are good for him. But he can’t even be bothered to think about himself in this moment. He’s only thinking about Naruto. He can only think of what Naruto needs. 

“Naruto-” 

“No- You don’t- You don’t have to say anything.” Naruto says decidedly. “It’s not your burden that I'm insecure. That’s not fair.” 

“It’s fair. I did this.” And Sasuke almost  wants to cry at how true that is. How he really did put those thoughts and fears in Naruto’s head. “I put that fear there.” 

“It’s not your fault I'm so dependent.” Naruto states logically. 

“I’m no better.” 

Naruto laughs again, finally looking up at Sasuke. Sasuke missed looking at them for just those few minutes.  

“You’d be fine either way.” Naruto bites out, and that hurts because it sounds like Naruto really believes that. 

And something flares up in Sasuke at the words. At first, it’s anger because that is so far from the truth. But the flame dies down a bit and it just feels like desperation. If this is what Naruto thinks of what they are then he’s so very wrong. He can’t have an emotional, existential crisis over what to say anymore. It’s just too important.  

“Naruto,” He says, voice uncharacteristically thick with emotion. “I think I would die. I would die without you. Almost did a few times.” 

Naruto just stares. He stares and searches Sasuke’s eye for even the slightest hint of deception or fallacy. Sasuke palms his face, drawing in as close as he can. He isn’t sure if kissing him is the right thing to do, but it just feels right to him. Usually Naruto is the one asking.  

“Can I?” Sasuke asks tentatively, the words foreign on his tongue. His breath ghosts gently over Naruto’s lips. Naruto lets his eyes flutter closed as he nods.  

He kisses him fully and sincerely, and they move like there was never a disagreement in the first place. But that wasn’t even what he wanted to tell him. Not really. He wanted to ask him about the field study. But now he can’t be bothered to with the feeling of their lips connecting like this. 

“I wouldn’t let you die.” Naruto mumbles. 

“I know.” Sasuke smiles against his lips. “Track record.” 

 ____________________________________________________________

Sakura comes to give him some paperwork later that day. Naruto has gone out in the heavy rain to fetch a few food items, for lack of anything to eat in the house. 

Sasuke lets her in wordlessly and she scans the place for any sign of Naruto, wondering if Sasuke has brought up the topic yet. 

He sits down at the table with her and sifts thought the standard documents, eyes briefly scanning the places where he’s meant to write things in. 

“It will be easy to clear you.” She states in a measured tone.  

“I figured.” He says, voice nonchalant.  

“You haven’t asked yet.” It’s not a question. 

Sasuke knows she doesn’t want him to leave. She doesn’t want either of them to leave. She’s not the type to feel secure without a team by her side. That’s what Sasuke knows to be true. But he can’t be sure now. He’s still getting to know this version of her after being awaay for so long.  

He doesn’t address her statement right away. He feels something twist in his gut, an apology on the tip of his tongue.  

“I’m sorry, Sakura.” 

She balks, confused as hell. 

“Huh?” 

“I’m sorry.” He says again, setting the papers down. “For everything I put you through.” 

She doesn’t say anything, eyes unreadable.  

“For hurting you.” 

“Mentally or physically?” She laughs. But it’s just not funny. How can it be? 

“Both,” He se says quietly, having no expectations from her. He just wanted to say it.  

She seems to think for a moment, not sure on what she’d like to say.  

“That was a long time ago.” She says. “It doesn’t matter now.” 

Sasuke doesn’t understand anything. He might never. In a way, He’s jealous of her. He’s jealous of her confidence, her stability, he independence, her resilience. Everything that he never thought she would live up to, but unexpectedly surpassed him despite how average he thought her to be. He was so very wrong about her. He eyes the Strength of 100 Seal on her forehead and smirks in defeat.  

It doesn’t seem like she’ll accept his apology. Not because she’s unforgiving, but because it truly doesn’t matter anymore. It’s too late. 

And at that moment it occurs to him that he doesn’t want to be late for anything else. He’s in no position to ask her for a favor.  

“Sakura, will you...” He takes a breath, “Will you stay until Naruto returns?” 

Her brows furrow. “For what?” 

“I’m going to ask him.” 

“And you want me here for it? Are you joking?” 

“Does it look like I'm joking?” 

“Now you need moral support?” 

“Yeah?” 

She sighs deeply.  

“If you two start fighting, I’m out of here.” 

He’ll take it. 

 ________________________________________________________

Naruto puts away his groceries after greeting Sakura in mild suspicion. He has no idea what they’re up to over on the table, but he sees paperwork and it looks important.  

There’s a bit of an uncomfortable feeling in the air. He doesn’t know what to expect, but Sasuke looks... Nervous? He really hopes he hasn’t gotten himself into any trouble. Naruto doesn’t think he can handle any more of that. 

He sits down at the table and tries to look relaxed. He purposely avoids looking at the paperwork. He’s sure they’ll tell him.  

“Naruto,” Sasuke starts. “I’ve found something. A job, I guess?” 

Naruto relaxes a little, he fakes a smile, because he’s not sure if there’s anything to be glad about yet. “That’s great!” 

“But there’s conditions.” 

He eyes the both of them, suspicious all over again.  

“What’s going on here?” 

“It’s a field study, Naruto.” Sakura pipes in. “A two-year field study.” 

He bites his lip. He’s not quite sure he heard her right. And even if he did hear her right, he doesn’t know why the hell she’s promoting something like this. That strange uncomfortable feeling rises up in his chest. The kind where it gets too tight in his lungs and he can’t quite breathe. He scratches at his hand on the table, refusing to look up at them both. So, this was what Sasuke was talking about. On the docks he said he'll stay a while. Just a while and then he’ll leave when he’s ready. Naruto didn’t think he would be ready to go so soon.  

He didn’t think he would be ready to go right after that heart to heart this morning that meant so much to Naruto. That talk that made him finally feel like there’s no way he could possibly lose him. He can feel his eyes getting damp and he hates it. He would rather not show it at this point. He feels a little betrayed. Not just by Sasuke but Sakura too, just because she’s clearly involved and sitting right here. His heart is in his throat but he just wants to close off. He doesn’t want Sakura to see him break down like he did those few months ago on his kitchen floor, where Sasuke had to urge him back into breathing properly.  

He feels it getting closer, creeping up on him, darkening his mind and tearing at his throat. There’s nothing he can do. There’s nothing he can say to stop this. Because something that comes up time and time again like this is bound to happen regardless.  

He shuts his eyes tight. 

Suddenly there’s a hand on his. He opens his not quite dry eyes to look up. Sasuke’s expression is like one he’s never seen before. Open, pleading, practically desperate. He squeezes Naruto’s hand tighter across the table, not caring at all that Sakura will see them this way.  

“Naruto.” Sasuke’s voice cracks. And he’s not sure why he asked Sakura to be here now, because he feels so pathetic. He was terrified to do this. He was terrified to ask in the same that Naruto is terrified of him leaving again. “Come with me.” 

Naruto releases a breath, never really aware that he had been holding it. 

“What?” 

“Come with me, Naruto.” 

They stare at each other for an immeasurable amount of time. He can’t speak. He doesn’t know what to say. 

Sakura leans in slightly as if she we’re wordlessly asking if she should leave. She hopes that Sasuke remembers what she told him.  You might not like his answer.  

Naruto feels too much in the moment. He feels so much that it amounts to him being unable to identify any of his emotions. As if they we’re all cancelling each other out, he almost feels nothing. 

His vision tunnels and before and one can stop him, he pulls his hand back from Sasuke’s and he stands from the table. His expression is blank. They don’t know what he’s thinking. He leaves the house again, without a word uttered in reply to that weighted question.  

Sasuke stares down at the table, fist clenched where his hand was holding Naruto’s tightly just moments ago.  

Sakura places her hand on his shoulder that shakes in anger, frustration, sadness? She doesn't know. She says something about letting Naruto be for a while so he can think properly about it. Sasuke doesn’t hear it.  

He doesn’t hear anything.  

[cyhyr]

Branding, Part 6

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: E

WC: ~4042 for this part / ~41.2k total

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; Warnings Subject to Change

Additional Tags (pertaining ONLY to this part): injury recovery, covert maneuvers, masturbation, guilt

A/N: It's here! After fighting through Whumptober, I've finally gotten the time to be able to finish this part! MANY thanks to @atereal for all her amazing ideas that helped make this chapter work 💛

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Read on The Archive

~

The Hatake compound is one of the oldest in Konoha; and certainly one of the most well-hidden. Iruka is careful, leading Sakura and Sasuke through the streets into the ancient district where the Hatake lands were, dodging other pedestrians and keeping his awareness up for any ANBU who might be watching the compound. Still, they make it to the gate and Iruka hopes against all hope that between the brand and his past that the gate will still open for him.

He places his palm on the wooden gate and feeds it the barest amount of chakra he thinks he can get away with. Silently, it cracks open and Iruka ushers the two genin inside. Once the gate shuts behind them, Iruka takes out the scroll he prepared before they left his apartment and releases his sealwork kit.

He begins by placing wards and seals on the gate, designed to match and enhance the wards already in place.

“Sensei?”

“Yes, Sasuke?”

“I don’t really understand why we left. You said that the building would collapse around us before the wards fell.”

Sakura chimes in, “That’s right. What changed?”

Iruka pauses and sighs. “What changed is that I was unconscious for two days. My wards are good—some of the best—but even the best locks can be picked with time. There was no way to tell how long those people had been working on the wards, and they could have been days from breaking through, or seconds. We needed to leave. Kakashi—” He shuts his eyes and swallows the lump growing in his throat. “Something must have happened to him. And he didn’t… he didn’t say it, but by sending you along with me, he was entrusting me with your safety. I won’t betray that. We all needed to move before the wards broke.”

He continues painting seals on the gate, and hears both Sasuke and Sakura wander away into the gardens. It’s dark inside the compound, like an eternal twilight; just like he remembers it.

The last time he was here was just before Sakumo died. He and Kakashi were friends, then. Or at least, he had thought they were friends. Kakashi had self-isolated and abandoned Iruka so quickly after his father’s death, when all Iruka had wanted was to comfort his friend and, in his innocence, hug him until the tears stopped.

He had to find out from his mother and father that Kakashi had moved out of the Hatake compound. But all they knew was that he lived in the chūnin barracks, until such time as he passed his jōnin test and moved again. Iruka didn’t see Kakashi again until after Rin-san passed, and by then Kakashi was unreachable.

Occasionally he caught glimpses of an ANBU in the shadows following Kushina-san whenever his parents left him with her for the day—an ANBU with the same spiky silver hair as Kakashi’s. But Kakashi never approached him. He hadn’t talked to Kakashi again until they went on that mission together and Iruka messed up spectacularly. And even then, Kakashi treated him like a total stranger instead of the childhood friends they had been.

He hasn’t yet forgiven Kakashi for shutting him out like that. He honestly doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to. Iruka wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and sniffs back tears. He has children to protect, and little time to dwell on the past.

~

Kakashi wakes up, dazed and confused, in a hospital bed… but not in a hospital. Instead, a glance around, once he gets his bearings, shows what he’s pretty sure is Nara architecture. His vision blurs out and he blinks to try and stay awake.

“Kakashi?”

“Shi—”

Then his eye closes again and he falls back asleep.

~

“How does Kakashi-sensei live like this?!”

“He doesn’t,” Sasuke groans. “Are you dumb or what? This place hasn’t been occupied in years.”

Sakura screws up her face, confused. “But I thought clan members lived on clan lands. Isn’t that how that works?”

Before Sasuke blows up at her, Iruka interjects, setting his broom aside. “Not always. When there’s only one or two people left in a clan, a lot of times a compound is too much work for them to perform the upkeep needed. So they’ll find an apartment or a small house in the village.” Iruka pauses for a second to think, then continues, “I’m pretty sure that Kakashi lives in the jōnin barracks still.”

“And I moved into an apartment about six months after… um.”

“Oh.”

Sakura looks embarrassed, so Iruka smiles at her. “If it helps, I didn’t know this either until I was almost seven years old, and I grew up with shinobi parents. You were raised in a civilian family, Sakura. There are some things that are going to be different, culturally. And that’s okay.”

“Thank you, sensei,” Sakura smiles.

Iruka almost smiles back, but his vision blurs and his balance tips off, and he hears both of the kids yell his name before he slips down to his knees and braces himself on the floor, gasping for air. Distantly he recognizes hands on his back between his shoulders. He grabs at the seal on his neck and—is his palm hot, or is the brand?

He gets a flash of feeling; a brief but intense headache, a sharp throbbing in his left eye, a bone-deep exhaustion settling into his limbs. It all eases as quickly as it sets in, and Iruka is left reeling and dazed.

“Sensei! Are you okay?!”

“I’m—yes, but.” His chest hurts and he feels the seal tighten around his throat. He needs Kakashi. It’s been too long since he’s seen him, too long since he’s had skin contact, too long… “I need to go out and look for Kakashi.”

Sasuke groans, “Why? You’ve made a second fortress, and now you’re going to leave it?!”

“I want you both to stay here,” Iruka says, slowly getting up. Once he’s on his feet, he stumbles to the door and pulls on his flak vest and slips into his sandals. “I’ll be back soon.”

“But—”

���Sasuke, I promise, I’ll be back.” Iruka grins at the two of them. “Before sunset, alright?”

Sakura and Sasuke both give him their own version of a worried look. Sakura folds her arms behind her back and bites her lip. Sasuke crosses his arms and frowns. Neither say anything more, and so Iruka puts his hands on both their shoulders.

“If I’m not back,” he says gently, “the wards are keyed to both of you. You won’t be stuck here. Go find another jōnin sensei—Gai-sensei, Kurenai-sensei, and Asuma-sensei will all help you.”

He very graciously ignores the anxious tears Sasuke sniffs away. And then he leaves, activating an imperceptibility seal before stepping out of the compound gate. He pings with his chakra, but only perceives a few birds and a squirrel nearby.

Iruka places his fingers on the brand and breathes. It’s still warm.

Kakashi’s not too far.

He turns left and jumps to the trees.

~

Again, Kakashi wakes; in a different room and in a different bed than before. Now he’s on a comfortable futon. He can feel all over his body where the genjutsu sliced into him, and he manages a short moan at the feeling of a kunai still stuck in his side. He can’t lift his hands to check, but considering both that he’s in someone’s care and that he’s not dead yet, he has to assume that there is no kunai, but that the pain is simply the lasting effects of Itachi.

Gods, Itachi.

The young man had taken out three squads of ANBU before Kakashi had shown up, yet still was able to put him on his back.

“You’re awake again. Good.”

Kakashi rolls his head to the side and looks up at Shikaku, kneeling beside him. “How long…?”

“A couple days.”

His heart clenches tight. “Iruka?!”

Shikaku crosses his arms and frowns deeper. "We weren’t able to get in contact with him. Shikamaru said he saw Iruka-sensei with Sasuke and Sakura, and they had been heading towards the residential district Iruka-sensei lives in. But that’s the last anyone’s seen of them.”

“His home?” Kakashi asks breathlessly.

“Surrounded by ROOT by the time we realized that Danzō was taking the opportunity to try and break in. There’s not much we can do, except to intercept them once they breach.”

Kakashi sighs heavily. “They haven’t broken in yet?”

“Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time.” Shikaku takes a tray from beside him and pulls it around so it’s between them. “Can you eat?”

Kakashi winces. “I can try.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Kakashi has only barely touched his fingers to his mask to take it down when a light tapping comes at the door. Shikaku looks to him, first, and when Kakashi nods, calls out, “Enter.”

The door slides open and Shikamaru says, “I swear, I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t know how he knows, either, but he does.”

Shikaku’s brows furrow. “Who knows what, son?”

“Iruka-sensei is outside. He just appeared out of thin air and demanded to come in and see Kakashi-sensei. But no one else should know that he’s here besides us and Asuma-sensei, so how did he find out?”

Kakashi stopped listening at Iruka-sensei is outside. He looks to Shikaku and says, “Please. I need to see him. If it is him, please let him in.”

Shikaku nods and stands up. “I’ll check him over myself, and bring him to you should he be genuine.”

Then he leaves with his son and Kakashi is left alone in the small room. He watches the afternoon sun flicker across the ceiling and falls into meditation to help his chakra circulate. His abdomen hurts the worst, so he focuses his chakra there, swirling and twisting and picking up hurt and taking it elsewhere in his body. The pain of genjutsu is easier to recover from if it’s spread out; likely why Itachi had stabbed him over and over in the same spot.

It’s only a few minutes later that the door to his room opens and in stumbles Iruka, frown set and eyes hardened. “Thank you, Nara-dono,” he murmurs, and then he crosses over to Kakashi’s bedside and falls to his knees, instantly pressing his forehead to Kakashi’s chest and groaning.

Kakashi lifts his hand shakily and places it in Iruka’s hair, scratching his skull gently.

“What happened?” Iruka asks. He turns his head to look up at Kakashi.

He tries to drop his hand, but Iruka reaches up and snatches it and puts it back against his skull. Kakashi sighs and happily continues touching him. “Itachi,” he says.

“Are you okay?”

“Ye—Um. No. No, I’m not. I shouldn’t even be conscious right now.”

“I’ve been worried.” Iruka lifts his head and continues, “We had to leave the apartment.”

“What? But your apartment is impenetrable!”

“Not as such,” Iruka chuckles. “I was unconscious for just over a day, and—”

“What happened??”

“I assume the seal had something to do with it,” Iruka responds darkly. “Anyway, we had to leave. I had to assume that Danzō’s soldiers were close to breaking through.”

“Sakura and Sasuke?”

“They’re safe. The wards on the Hatake compound recognized me.”

“So they’re—”

Iruka put his finger to his own lips and stared at him meaningfully. He repeats himself, “They’re safe.” Sighing, he changes the subject. “What did Itachi do to you?”

“Genjutsu.”

“Right, obviously, it’s Itachi. But what happened?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Kakashi murmurs. “Did you look around the library for more information about the brand?”

“Not yet. I’ve been reworking the wards and cleaning up the house. You really should at least hire a housekeeper.”

“I’ll consider it.” Kakashi closes his eye and sighs. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

“Stop. Just… just stop.” Iruka scrubs his hand down his face and says, “I’ll admit, I never thought I’d be in hiding from my own village, but it’s good to know I have allies.”

“You should stay here tonight.”

“I can’t. I promised Sasuke I’d be back by sunset. It already took me longer than I expected to find you, I have to go back.” Iruka flushes, and continues, “Besides, they’re alone behind my wards with no food. My emergency rations will only tide them over for so long.”

Kakashi nods. “Thank you, for taking care of them both. I… I wish I could go with you.”

Iruka scoffs. “You can barely sit up on your own. You need to stay put and heal.”

“My pouch,” Kakashi points to the pile of gear at the end of the futon. “I have scrolls in there, camping equipment and food stores.”

Iruka shuffles over to the pile and picks out the storage scrolls. He unrolls three of them to check the seals and their contents. He nods and sticks them into his own pouch.

Kakashi continues, “You should be able to camp out there in relative comfort, at least until I’m well and able to stand again.”

“I need you better than just being able to stand," Iruka says, taking his hand. It’s warm, and Kakashi feels himself flush with the touch. “Stay in bed until you’re able to fight again. I’ll keep the kids safe.”

“And yourself.”

“Kakashi—”

“Danzō has no reason to take Sakura,” Kakashi hastily explains. “She has a family, people who will miss her. Besides that, she doesn’t meet his profile. Sasuke would be taken and trained to be one of Danzō’s attack dogs, and I don’t see that ending well for Sasuke; but they’d have to keep Sasuke with the other recruits, which means I can track him. But you?” He lifts himself up to sit, Iruka dropping his hand so he can instead reach out to steady him, palm pressed to his upper back and his other arm outstretched in front of Kakashi. “You, he’ll take and lock away so far underground that I’ll be lucky if the seal will help me find you. Please,” he reaches and takes back Iruka’s hand in his own, squeezes gently, “Please keep yourself safe.”

Iruka nods, and pushes on his shoulders. “Sure, absolutely, just please lay down. You’re going to injure yourself further.” Kakashi goes back down, but doesn’t let go of Iruka’s hand. “I’ve been covert ops for years now, Kakashi,” Iruka murmurs, “I know how to keep myself safe.”

He studies Iruka’s frown and then says, “I trust you, you know.”

Iruka nods. “Thank you.”

“It’s Danzō I don’t trust.”

“I know.”

“I… would like to see you again. Soon.”

“I’ll come back. I don’t think I can stay away, with the seal and all.”

Kakashi feels his face heat up. “Would you… before you go, that is—could I touch you some more, just for a—!” But Iruka has already bent over and pressed the side of his head to Kakashi’s sternum. Startled, Kakashi slowly wraps his arms around Iruka’s back and relishes in the gentle warmth Iruka glows with. He holds Iruka for as long as he’s allowed, and then releases him when he feels Iruka begin to pull away.

“I have to go,” he says.

“Stay safe.”

“Get well soon.”

Then Iruka gathers his things together, and slips out of the room, into the early evening light. Kakashi watches him go, even the slight pause he makes to turn around and wave one last time to Kakashi. He also lifts his hand in a final goodbye, and then Iruka’s gone for good.

Then, his chest starts to ache. The seal’s acting up again, likely because they’re putting more distance in-between them than they really should at this stage. He drops his hand onto his chest and begins to rub at the ache. His hands still tingle a little where he had brushed his fingers through Iruka’s hair, where he had felt the warmth of Iruka’s palm against his own. He closes his eye and tries to meditate the ache away.

But five minutes go by and still the ache is persistent, if not getting worse. And it almost feels like the ache is moving, falling lower and lower to his stomach. Kakashi focuses harder on circulating his chakra, now worried that the ache might have something to do with the Tsukuyomi, but when it slips down even further, past where Itachi used the genjutsu to stab him…

Kakashi groans. He doesn’t have the energy for this. He pressed the heel of his hand into his crotch to will the growing erection away, but all he gets for his effort is a pleasant shock down his spine and the urge to rock his hips into his hand. Gods, Iruka would hate him for being so damn desperate, but the more he tries to ignore it the stronger the feeling grows. He can still catch the faint scent of Iruka on the bedsheets where he’d laid his head and it’s driving him mad.

Fuck.

He listens carefully, and over his thumping heart he can tell that neither Shikaku nor Shikamaru are closeby, certainly not enough that they’ll hear him, or walk in on him before he notices. He can be quick; his time in ANBU taught him how to get off efficiently enough. Kakashi pops the button on his pants and lowers the zip, then shoves his hand down his underwear to grip himself and—

And fuck it feels good, just his fingers tightening around his hard length is enough to draw a light moan from his throat. He sighs and begins to pump his hand, and that same ache that he usually gets in his chest settles instead in his balls and at the base of his dick. He smears precum across the head with his thumb, strokes the underside with his fingertips, and then the ache shifts just a little and he realizes that he needs more.

With his other hand, he pushes two fingers past his lips and just barely keeps from moaning. He’s not able to stop himself from stroking his cock faster, harder. His eye rolls back as he licks between his fingers and drools all over them. He even presses down on his tongue and slides his fingers as far back into his throat as he can manage. His dick leaks more precum. He sweeps it down with his thumb and smears it all around the head.

He could come like this. With his hand on his dick and a couple of fingers in his mouth; but it wouldn’t be as satisfying. He rolls onto his side, still gripping his cock, and slides his other hand down the back of his pants and circles his hole and oh.

That’s what he’s after.

He dips the tip of one finger inside himself and feels his dick twitch in his other hand. Slowly, he begins to circle his rim with both fingers, occasionally slipping just the tip inside of himself with every third circle. He stops bothering to stroke his cock, instead just holding it and thumbing over the head in tandem with his fingers on his rim.

The only way this could be better is if it were Iruka’s fingers on his hole and Iruka’s mouth on his cock—

“Ahh—”

His cock pulses and his balls draw up and his fingers thrust as far inside him as he can manage without cramping his wrist. He breathes heavily through his orgasm, finally letting his fist fly over his cock as cum shoots out to soak his underwear.

When it’s over, he sighs and pulls both his hands from his pants and sits up. There’s a small sink in the corner of the room—if he can stand, he can clean up before Shikaku comes back. He’s careful, remembering what Iruka said about not injuring himself further, but does indeed make it over to the sink. His underwear is sticky and hopeless; he kicks them off and slips his pants back on without them, then shoves the soiled clothing into his pouch. He’ll wash those later, when he’s better.

Then he makes his way back to the futon, where the guilt finally settles in.

Because Iruka’s never going to find out about this… but if he does, Kakashi knows he’ll be pissed, having been objectified so.

~

Before he gets the chance to jump away, Shikaku stops him. Iruka was just about to activate the imperceptibility seal, so he was caught just in time. Iruka turns to him, humming questioningly.

“I’m working on the jōnin corps, because Danzō can be the interim Hokage for months but without the confirmation of the Assembly, he isn’t official.”

Iruka nods.

“You… you understand?”

“I understand that if I get caught, then there’s a chance you’ll all be able to free me, because an interim Hokage’s orders aren’t law until they’re confirmed by all relevant parties.” Iruka smirks. “Or did you forget that I’m a teacher?”

Shikaku scoffs a light laugh. “I didn’t forget. But Shikamaru never spoke to me about what was taught, so I don’t know what you cover in your class.”

“Shikamaru-kun was an exceptional student,” Iruka says, reminiscing. “If only he would apply himself instead of watching clouds.”

Shikaku chuckles briefly, but sobers quickly. “If you need supplies, I can send some along.”

“Kakashi gave me his scrolls. We’ll be alright for tonight, and I’ll go out and get more tomorrow.”

“That might not be the best idea,” Shikaku says. “Going out multiple times. Once is risky enough.”

“I can’t stay away from him for too long, not without significant repercussions,” Iruka grumbles. “Regardless, I’m well-versed in keeping myself safe. I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure… We’ll see you tomorrow, then, I suppose?”

Iruka nods again, and then activates the seal. He relishes the surprise on Shikaku’s face, and then jumps away and leaves the Nara compound.

He can’t go back to his own home, but there’s another place he can go to get some quick supplies. He makes sure he’s alone with a quick ping of chakra, and then lowers the wards on Naruto’s apartment and slips inside. He opens one of the storage scrolls Kakashi had given him, and in a spare spot he seals away the electric kettle, a few containers of cup ramen (he’ll pay Naruto back later), and a few sets of chopsticks snatched from the drawer. He’s just as careful leaving Naruto’s place, making sure to seal it up just as tight as it was before he came.

He gets about ten paces outside of Naruto’s apartment when a shiver shoots down his spine and he’s left gasping and reeling and—he stops, puts his palm against the side of a building, and wonders what the fuck that was. It… it almost felt like…

Iruka flushes, grateful that he’s imperceptible. It almost felt like an orgasm.

On his neck, the brand pulses in time with the phantom ache in his crotch and he just knows that Kakashi just got off. That bastard. The seal lets him get off without assistance, but not Iruka?! What utter bullshit!

Then he feels a wave of, of guilt choking him through the brand, and Iruka sighs and shakes his head. It’s not his, at least; so it has to be a new part of the seal. And at least Kakashi has the good grace to feel bad about this all. But really—

Could he just settle down and rest for ten minutes?!

“We’re gonna have a talk about this tomorrow,” Iruka sighs. Then he composes himself and continues his way back to the compound.

~

He leaves again early in the morning, after leaving instructions for Sasuke and Sakura to use their own pair of seals to go to Gai-sensei’s home and to stay there until Kakashi can come get them himself, or Danzō is uninstalled as Hokage. They part ways at the compound gate, and Iruka watches them go until he can’t, and then sneaks his way back to the Nara compound.

The smack to the back of his head trips him up and sends him to the ground. He looks up just before his sight goes and sees an old classmate of his—

“Asahi-kun? I thought…”

Then he knew nothing more.

[sloshi]

SasuSaku fanfic

Title: Only Human

Pairing: Sasusaku

Rating: T

Summary: When Naruto challenges him to drinking contest, it's only natural Sasuke doesn't refuse. However... the Uchiha has never been drunk before in his life. And when Sakura opens her door at nearly 3 AM, she certainly gets the surprise of a lifetime. Sasusaku. One-shot.

Recommended reading here (Format is corrected)

It’s said that the Uchiha have always been a slave to their emotions.

And, as it was this very night, the Uchiha in question is no exception to his ancient clan’s unusual curse. It is only natural that Sasuke maintains his lineal blight; a crack in his mask of apathy. He cannot run from something ingrained in his DNA. Cannot expunge what is permanently imprinted upon his heart.

Even if Sasuke buries this truth behind layers of concrete denial...

In the end, he is only human.

And when his fourteenth shot glass hammers down on the sleek bar top, Sasuke gets a glimpse as to what that might actually mean when his thoughts run together in a blurred line and alcohol tries his rationality. Where the only organ left functioning spritely is his heart; where emotion has overridden any sensibility the Uchiha has once possessed.

Sasuke feels warmth. He feels it somersaulting and prancing around in his chest where he is usually dormant. He is not one to let his feelings run by unchecked—never has he been so vulnerable in his passing years as he is now, intoxicated beyond repair.

Yet he is here anyway, perched precariously upon a bar stool that the idiot has dragged him upon just hours earlier, swaying to and fro, feeling as light as a balloon.

It has only been a month since he has stepped back through the gates of his home village. But Naruto is already bringing him trouble. He had challenged him to a drinking contest and, despite that Sasuke has never actually been drunk before, he flatly refuses to let the idiot get the upper hand in anything. Even as grown men. How hard could it be? He had thought arrogantly.

“You’ve... always been m’best friend... loser...” the Uchiha slurs. He slouches to lay his head down upon the cold wooden bar top for a fraction of a moment. Then, he decides he does not like that position and he sits back up, swaying. Sasuke picks up the empty shot glass in his fingers and twirls it in a circular, absent-minded motion, as if he is debating something important.

Naruto howls in laughter, wobbling just as unceremoniously as the raven haired man beside him. He claps Sasuke forcibly, with a little more push than Naruto probably intends in his drunken state, on the back. This causes the tiny glass in his fingers to drop back onto the bar top and shatter. “Ha! I never thought you to be the sentimental type, bastard!”  

Sasuke isn’t. But the alcohol distorts his brain and he has no idea what he is saying. The words that spill from his lips are not from his conscious, but from an unfamiliar place inside him. The things he has never been able to say out loud before are tumbling out of his lips without regard. He is making a fool of himself, but in this moment there are no thoughts of repercussion. There is no shame in his confession.

“Shut up,” Sasuke bites back without conviction before he swivels a little to far to his right. Naruto snatches his newly attached left arm, catching his best friend from falling off his seat and onto the floor.

“Whoa—!” Naruto exclaims, a flash of sobriety flickering to life in cerulean eyes with his concern, “Maybe we should call it quits; you look like you’ve had enough.”

Sasuke lashes his arm away from him and out of his grip at once. He sits back up straight, with great effort, and holds onto the bar top to steady himself. “Don’t... touch me,” he snaps, but the threat he wants to be there is lost in his slur. His words are sloppy; laughably meaningless. Mismatched eyes are half-lidded and clouded under sharp raven bangs. His cheeks are flushed red with intoxication. “—‘mm not a light weight like... you.”

The blond only lets out a cackle when Sasuke’s attempt at a serious glare fails miserably.

“Who’s gonna’ clean this mess up?” A deep voice chastises and both Sasuke and Naruto look to the frowning bartender who stands with arms taut across his bulky chest behind the counter. He is referring to the shards of glass that glitter on the bar top.

Sasuke jabs a wobbling, accusing finger at the blond next to him, poking the side of his head. “This idiot.” He proclaims confidently, and then pushes the tip of his finger harder against the blonds skull, nearly tipping the Fox boy off his own seat.

Naruto swats his hand away and struggles to regain his balance. “Hey! What the... hell was that for! An’ I didn’t do that!” He defends boisterously, his own words stringing together incoherently before he hiccups.

The bartender only gives a disappointed shake of his head before sighing, as if this happens every night. He pulls a rag out from behind the counter and scrapes the slivers of glass off and into a garbage can hidden from sight before he attends to another customer.

“‘Mm glad you’re back,” Naruto tells him genuinely when the bartender falls out of earshot, “...was getting lonely around here without someone’s ass to kick.”

Sasuke scoffs and tries to roll his eyes at this, but he ends up just making himself dizzy with the motion. He sets a firm elbow on the counter, sliding his head into in his palm lazily as the blond prattles on.

“But you know who really missed you?” Naruto entertains with a mischievous waggle of his eyebrows. But Sasuke doesn’t, and he gives a heavy shake of his head in his palm, raven tresses swinging back and forth with the motion.

He leans in incrementally, a sly smirk on his lips, and drops his voice to a whisper as if he were about to reveal a dangerous secret, “Sakura-chan,”

Sasuke blinks heavily. The mention of his pink-haired teammate brings forth a flashback and the last memory he has of her plays in his mind.

His index and middle finger tap the purple diamond seal between her pink eyebrows where Itachi has done so many times to his own before.

Her jade eyes glitter with surprise—and something else he cannot name—when she looks up into his own.

“Maybe next time.” He promises.

“Sssakura.” He echoes, the name slurring off his tongue, as if he’s testing out the syllables for the first time. But he says nothing more on the matter.

Naruto nods his head eagerly, “She missed you soooo much.” he explains, shifting to casually mirror Sasuke’s position as he leans into his own palm, “She neverrrr shuts up about you, believe it!” Naruto straightens back up and snaps his fingers rudely at the bartender, earning him a death glare from the man who is mixing a drink on the other end of the bar. “Another round of shots over here, please! The strongest you got!”

“Hn...” Sasuke grunts, but also sits up; he does not refuse when the next round of alcohol is set before him and throws it back with ease. It burns his throat, and he almost gags, but he holds it down in front of Naruto.

The blond wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and lets out an obnoxious sigh of satisfaction when they slam the empty shot glasses down upon the bar top at the same time. Their challenge has been long forgotten.

“Ssspeaking of Sakura-Chan...” Naruto continues dramatically, and turns to his best friend with curious drunken orbs. “Have you been to see her yet?” He finishes with a hiccup.

He hasn’t, but guilt that was not there before strikes him now. “No...” he replies with a terse shake of his head.

Cloudy blue eyes blink in confusion. “Eh?! Why not?”

Sasuke tries to think about that. When he first arrived back in Konoha, there had been a bountiful to-do-list laid before him. First, he had to meet with Kakashi; who seemed delighted in his return, but nevertheless gave him a serious rundown of the all things he had to catch up on in his year of absence.

There had been mountains of paperwork to fill out in order to keep the Uchiha compound from being repossessed, and it had taken days to clean the cobwebs and dirt that had settled inside every nook and cranny of his abandoned home. He restocked his fridge, did piles of forgotten laundry, changed the linens of every bed in the house, and sorted through all of his old belongings.

He met with Tsunade who, after much convincing, patched him up with a new arm despite his protests. That alone had taken weeks of boring hospitalization and overwhelming medical information. He finds himself surprised that Sakura hadn’t sought him out herself, then. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t expected her to waltz in the very hospital room he had stayed in; but she never did.

In short, Sasuke had been kept ‘busy’ all month. Tonight is his first night free of any real task and he figured it wouldn’t hurt to join Naruto in his usual shenanigans. He had simply grown bored with his everyday mundane chores. Nothing more.

“Busy...” Sasuke provides what he believes is the truth, but Naruto only takes it as an empty excuse.

“So you’re tellin’ me,” he says as if he’s personally offended, “you didn’t... have even a second of free time to drop by Sakura-Chan’s apartment?”

Another shake of Sasuke’s head.

“Liar!” Naruto’s fist hammers down on the counter, causing the whole bar top to tremble and Sasuke to startle.

Strangers turn curious faces to his outburst and Sasuke’s red face is no longer related to intoxication alone. “Keep it down, idiot!” He seethes through clenched teeth. “Or you’ll get us both thrown out!”

Naruto crosses his arms with an indignant huff, followed by a hiccup. “I’d like to see them try! Only a dumbass would try and throw out the next Hokage!”

A burly shadow falls over the two drunk friends. “What was that?” The bartender offers a second chance, eyes sparking with challenge.

Naruto blinks, sweat-dropping, and waves his hands defensively,  “N-N-Nothing! Nothing at all, sir!”

A smug grunt is the only response they receive before he walks away. Naruto exhales loudly in relief, but stiffens in shock when Sasuke lets out quick, silent huffs of laughter.

“Oi! What’s so funny?!” Naruto demands, giving the raven-haired man a pointed shove, but he catches his arm before Sasuke can tip over again. However, the drunk Uchiha does not seem to be bothered by the action this time, as he is bizarrely preoccupied.

The last shot they had taken settles in and tips him to the point of no return, and Sasuke’s head is anywhere but on earth. It is the final push he needs to be free of any last remaining shred of coherence. He is a stranger Naruto has never seen.

“You—!” Sasuke clutches at his chest, struggling to contain his drunken, uncharacteristic bout of silent laughter, “You’re a... you’re a... and you’re afraid of... of...”

Naruto doesn’t quite understand what  his friend is saying, nor does he find what is so funny, but he is too shocked by Sasuke’s strange giggle-fit to say anything at all. It’s super weird, and all he can do is gape at the sight.

And then Naruto is laughing, too—but at Sasuke. It’s funny to see his stone-cold friend unwound and seemingly at ease; Even if Sasuke’s lopsided smirk isn’t quite an actual smile. It’s not a common sight, and Naruto does not pass up the opportunity to watch it unfold.

But when Sasuke catches his breath and his body dangerously teeters left to right; Naruto realizes his friend is clearly way in over his head. His mismatched eyes are all over the place, completely disoriented and unrecognizable. Naruto tries to take pride in the fact that Sasuke can’t hold his alcohol, but it quickly turns to worry when the Uchiha tries speaking and nothing he says makes sense. It’s jumbled noises and broken sentences. It disturbs him greatly.

“Okay...” Naruto says hesitantly and a little uncomfortably, instantly sobering up at the sight of his plastered friend, “I think it’s time to get you home...”

Sasuke snorts in disapproval, waving a dismissive hand and blurts: “‘mm fine, loser... just getting started...”

“Say, Sasuke...” the blond begins uneasily as he stands and pulls out his wallet to pay for their many drinks, “Have you... ever been drunk before?”

“I am’not drunk,” Sasuke scoffs, drawling out his words matter-of-factly, but Naruto knows he is lying and the Uchiha crosses his arms on the bar top, laying his spiked raven head on them. “‘Mm just a little tired...” his body jolts with a quiet hiccup.

Oh, man. Naruto thinks nervously as he observes his near comatose friend. There’s no way he can take care of himself right now.

The blond places a heap of money on the counter before he leans down to try and haul Sasuke’s arm up and over his shoulder. The Uchiha mutters a string of protests, but doesn’t seem to be able to physically fight back. Naruto tries to adjust his friend comfortably against him when they stand, but Sasuke is instantly a dead-weight and Naruto almost topples over.

“Jesus Christ! Just how much do you weigh?!”

“Wha’... are you doing...” Sasuke mumbles, head lolling to the side when Naruto just about drops him. But the blond finally finds his balance and adjusts Sasuke’s arm slung over his shoulder.

“I’m taking you home.” Naruto tells him sternly as if he’s talking to a child, taking slow, careful steps toward the exit. Sasuke’s feet practically drag along the wooden floor.

When they stumble outside, Naruto hopes the cool air will help shake Sasuke’s wits, but it does nothing of the sort. His raven head lolls to the side with every wobbling step they take together.

“S...”

Naruto pauses and looks to his friend who is struggling to lift his head.

“What?” He leans in, straining to hear.

“S... Sa...” he slurs, and Naruto blinks. “Ssakura.”

“Sakura-Chan?” He echoes in bewilderment. “What about her?”

“‘mm... go... house...”

“You want me to take you to Sakura-Chan’s house?” He splutters incredulously.

Sasuke nods precariously, but Naruto does not move. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sasuke.”

The Uchiha makes a strained noise, followed by a hiccup. “...now.”

Dammit... Naruto curses inwardly. Sakura-Chan will kill me if I bring Sasuke to her like this... He bites his lip and shutters just thinking about it. But I can’t really drop him off home alone... And Hinata-chan might be uncomfortable if I bring him back to the apartment... He remembers then that Sakura is a medic; she would know exactly how to take care of him. Naruto considers the Uchiha hanging upon his shoulder and sighs in defeat.

“If that’s what you really want...��

There is a slight movement from Sasuke, and he knows it’s a nod.

Here goes nothing...

————————————-

The first thing Sakura is aware of when she is jolted from a deep sleep are the blazing red numbers of her alarm clock that reads 2:47 AM, and the desperate pounding of her front door downstairs.

She is on her feet immediately; there is an emergency. Someone is hurt or dying—she is prepared to be on call at all times. She curses when she throws open her bedroom door, not bothering to throw a jacket on over her white spaghetti-strapped tank top, and takes three steps at a time down the stairs until she jumps off and clambers to her front door, ready to answer the medic who stands in wait just outside.

Sakura nearly chokes in relief when the door flys open and reveals two of her closest friends side by side on her porch. But there is something terribly wrong; her relief is shattered when she notices that something with Sasuke is not right. His unconscious body hangs limply off Naruto’s side.

“Sasuke-kun!” She nearly screams in horror, assuming the worst immediately. He is dying, or he is already dead. Every second that ticks by is a chance she loses to save him. She reaches out to him instantly, but is taken aback when the blond grins sheepishly and she second guesses herself.

“Surprise!” Naruto says half-heartedly. “I brought you a present.”

Sakura sputters in disbelief and looks as if she has been slapped. “What the—what the hell? Is Sasuke-kun okay? Is he hurt?”

“Oh, he’s fine.” Naruto assures despite that he looks anything but. He adjusts Sasuke on his shoulders when he groans quietly, “Remind me to never go out drinking with him again. Can you believe Sasuke of all people can’t handle his liquor, I mean—“

But Sakura is already taking the Uchiha out of his arms. They switch him over awkwardly and Sasuke almost falls onto his face before Sakura catches him. His sudden weight startles her and she squeaks when he nearly pulls her to the ground with him. She quickly taps into her chakra and holds him steady. Their difference in height makes it a little difficult to adjust, but she is successful when she finally decides to turn around and hoist Sasuke high upon her back. When her hands hook under his knees and his hands hang limp over her shoulders, piggybacked, she unleashes her fury upon the blond.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?!” She screeches in a whisper as to not wake the man on her back, and his sudden warm sigh against her ear makes her shudder, and then she scrunches her nose when the smell of hard liquor hits her nostrils.  “You idiot! What the hell is wrong with you!”

Naruto scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “S-Sorry, Sakura-Chan... but the bastard asked to come here.”

She freezes in her next insult to blink. “You—what?”

“He asked me to take him to your house, so I did.”

Sakura is silent for a moment as she considers the weight of this. Sasuke... wanted to come to her house? But why? It’s a bizarre idea to accept, especially since he hadn’t even bothered to see her in the entire month he’s been home. And now he just wants to be dumped at her doorstep? This better not be a joke! Or someone’s gonna pay! CHA!

When Sasuke mumbles quietly in her ear, she stiffens. She has no idea how to handle this; she has yet to even process what is happening. But the minute Naruto steps off her porch and leaves them alone, Sakura panics. Sasuke is drunk and sitting on her back like a giant sleeping child.

Slowly, as not to wake him, she creeps back into the house, shutting the door as quietly as possible with her foot. It clicks loudly and she flinches, but Sasuke only grumbles incoherently in her ear. A sigh of relief escapes her. His body jumps with silent hiccups. But now she is faced with another trying task: to lay him down without the risk of waking him.

That is, if he’s even sleeping. He seems to be, but the way he keeps slurring things in her ear tells her he’s just disoriented and teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. She knows he needs water. Carefully, she makes her way into the living room where she turns around and tries to lower the sleeping giant onto the cushions, but the position is awkward and she falls straight into his lap.

She feels him startle beneath her, jolted awake by the unexpected weight on his thighs and she squeaks in surprise, jumping to her feet and twirling around to face what she assumes will be wrath.

But he blinks up at her groggily, as if he’s not quite sure she’s there or not.

“...Sakura?” He slurs softly, the confusion saturating his deep voice.

“Y-Yup,” she laughs nervously, wringing her hands, “it’s just me.”

Way to go, idiot! Inner Sakura screeches at herself. Get a grip!

“Wha’... what are you... doing here?”

She blinks before supplying uneasily, “You’re... you’re in my house.”

It’s then that it seems to hit him where he is, because he sits up straighter and a little alarmed. “But... Naruto—?”

“—dropped you off here.”

However, he doesn’t seem to understand, or comprehend the absurdity of the situation because he relaxes his shoulders and simply replies, “Aa...”

As if it were perfectly fine he was sitting under her roof and wasted in her living room...

There is an awkward silence on Sakura’s part, and she fidgets where she stands. Perhaps he really is that drunk? She wonders what his blood alcohol level is, and she knows it must be high.

“I—I’ll go get you some water...”

Before he has a chance to reply, she skitters into the kitchen and throws open the cupboard, grabbing the first glass she sees and runs it under the tap. The cup trembles in her hand as it fills to the brim, and she can’t help but dread what Sasuke will do when he wakes up tomorrow and finds out he has slept in her house. She hasn’t spoken to him in over a year; she hasn’t seen him in over a year. And now he’s just—he’s just suddenly going to casually crash on her couch?! Unbelievable! Oops!—She turns off the tap when she realizes the cup is over flowing.

She pivots around and screams, the glass plunging to the tiled floor and exploding into a million pieces when a large, wobbly looming figure stands directly behind her in the door way.

“S-Sasuke-kun!” She breathes in horror. “You scared the hell—” she chokes on her words when he advances toward her. She quickly gains her bearings when she realizes where he’s about to step. “Wait—Sasuke-kun, there’s glass everywhere!”

She herself is barefoot, and she tries to step over the mess to stop him but yelps when she feels a shard puncture her heel.

“Ouch!” She hobbles over to him, trying to shove him out of the kitchen and back into the other room, but it’s as if she’s pushing against a brick wall. “Sasuke-kun! Please—you need to lie down and—!”

She freezes when a large hand is pressed on top of her head. She blinks before she looks up and meets half-lidded mismatched eyes. Her heart hammers like a drum within her chest and suddenly she cannot breathe.

“I—“ he starts, but his eyebrows furrow in what she assumes is pained confusion, “I do not... feel so well.”

“That’s because you’re drunk!” She snaps, and she can feel blood seeping from her barefoot and onto the cold floor. “Now, go lay down!” She demands as if she’s talking to an ornery dog rather than a grown man. He stares blankly down at her, wholly unaffected by her reprimand. Anger bubbles dangerously within her. What, has he suddenly become deaf, too?!

Just when she thought he wasn’t going to acknowledge her at all, he nods once, and then turns to stumble  back down the hallway to the living room—a hand following along the wall no doubt trying to keep himself upright. Sakura’s chest heaves with apprehension and something else, but she doesn’t allow herself to linger on the feeling. She has a mess to clean up, a foot to heal, and a drunken man she loves, to take care of.

A heavy, frustrated sigh escapes her lips as she turns around to clean up the broken glass and huge puddle of water, but a distinct ‘thump!’ has her bristling in place. Without a second thought, she scrambles—hopping on her injured foot—towards the living room only to find Sasuke flat on his face in the middle of it, clearly unsuccessful in making his way to the couch.

“Ugh! Sasuke-kun!” She is pulling at her pink stresses. “What the hell did you even drink!”

There is a muffled sound and Sakura realizes with baffled amusement that he has actually responded to her, face down in the carpet. She makes her way over to his side, ignoring the shooting pain in her heel, and kneels next to him, gently pressing a hand to the Uchiha crest on his back.

“Sasuke-kun...” she murmurs sadly, crest-fallen at his terrible state.

Naruto’s gonna pay for this! Inner Sakura erupts in flames, cracking her knuckles, For both making Sasuke miserable and ruining our reunion!

This was not how she expected her first meeting with him would go at all! She sighs and shakes her head in disappointment; it can’t be helped. Her hand slides up from between his shoulder blades into his silky raven hair where she slowly caresses his scalp. She is surprised when he lets out a quiet grunt, and she’s not sure if it’s because of her hand in his hair or because she’s said his name.

“You can’t stay here on the floor.” She whispers, fingers still gently playing in his inky tresses. “We have to get you on the couch.”

He doesn’t move and Sakura understands with great resentment that she must drag him there herself. She musters up all of her courage and leans over him, tapping into her super human strength as she hauls him upright by the arm and slings it over her shoulder. She carefully guides him to the couch where she is finally able to lay him down. She kneels in front of him and the Uchiha turns his head marginally towards her, mismatched orbs barely open and blinking heavily.

Sakura hesitantly reaches to his face, laying a gentle hand on his flushed cheek before lightly brushing away the bangs that make it hard to see his eyes. “Are you okay?” She asks quietly, though her gentle voice is amplified in the heavy silence.

He doesn’t nod, or reply. He just stares.

...

And stares.

...

And stares.

The only sound in the air is their unsteady breathing, and Sakura thinks she might go crazy if he doesn’t stop looking at her like that.

She gets up to stand and leave, “I—I’ll go get you a pillow and blank—“

She turns to move, only to freeze when a firm hand snatches her wrist—as swift as a striking cobra. Electric spiders shoot up her arm at his touch, and the air punches from her lungs. Slowly, as if she’s afraid of what she might find when she does, she turns to look over her shoulder and down at him. His expression is unreadable; blank as a canvas. There is nothing to indicate what he is thinking, and she is left baffled by his bold and confusing gesture.

“Sasuke... kun?” She breathes in astonishment, unsure jade eyes flickering to his unyielding hold on her wrist. “What are you d—?”

“You—“ he interjects abruptly, and then stops as if he’s hesitating. “Why... haven’t you... “ he struggles here, but finds the words he’s so desperately looking for when he finally chokes, “...come to see me?”

Sakura’s world stops. As if someone pesky has stolen the remote and presses pause at the most crucial part of a scene. Everything is at a standstill. Even Inner Sakura is shocked into silence. She is sure her eyes are wide and her jaw has slackened, but she cannot get her body to respond.

Did Sasuke... just... just ask her...

“Sakura?” He slurs uneasily, and its here that her world resumes and she starts to breathe again. She has to remind herself that Sasuke is not coherent. That he has no idea what he’s saying—or if he’ll even remember tonight at all. It would take hours before he was even sober again. She can see the fog in his questioning eyes. He is still highly intoxicated; drunk.

Yet, despite all of this, the gravity of his inquiry hits her like a brick.

Because, in order to ask something like that drunk, he had to be thinking it soberly in the first place.

So... What did that mean? Was he bothered by her absence? Was he hurt by it? Had... had he been waiting for her all this time? Sakura always assumed Sasuke would come see her when he saw it fit; assumed that his schedule would only allow for him to decide when to take action. Assumed that, perhaps, in the end, he just didn’t want to see her after all.

But he is here, wondering why she had not come to see him.

And she is speechless.

“I—“ The words die on her lips. She finds there is nothing she can say, because now she’s internally asking herself the same question.

Why hasn’t she gone to see him?

Sasuke has been the man she loved her whole life. And yet, even after his long awaited return, she never made a move to put herself in his path. Sakura genuinely believed that he had his hands tied; that important tasks had to be dealt with first and foremost, and that when he was finished he would be on her doorstep, ready to talk. She had not wanted to be in his way. Did not want to bother him in his homecoming adjustment. She had been patient. She wanted him to come to her, just this once.

And oh, how the fates have granted her wish in the most unfortunate fashion.

“I don’t know.” She squeaks nervously, and cannot meet his half-lidded eyes.

After a tense silence, the magnetic pull of his gaze draws her reluctantly back to his face; jade eyes finally dare to meet mismatched ones, and she thinks his eyebrows furrow marginally in hurt, but when she blinks it’s gone.

“I... see.”

His hand drops from her wrist and it’s as if she’s lost her anchor—she floats to the surface where she finally draws a breath she has not realized she has been holding. The feeling is strange now that his warmth is gone, and leaves something like the ghost of a burn where his slender fingers held tight. This time, he does not stop her when she walks away.

Hobbling up the stairs, she reaches into the hallway closet and gathers a heap of bedding in her arms. She hopes it’s enough to keep him comfortable, but there is no telling if he’ll even fall asleep. With her luck, he’ll be causing her trouble until the break of dawn.

Hopping carefully with her injured foot back down the stairs, she stiffens the moment she re-enters the living room and Sasuke is sitting upright.

A weak smile is all she can muster. “S-Sasuke-kun, you should lay down.”

He doesn’t, of course, and she sighs. She drapes the soft blanket over his shoulders like a cape, pulling it snuggly around his chest and sets the pillow down behind him, waiting for him to speak—or do anything to show he’s acknowledged her.

But he doesn’t do that, either.

His gaze is unfocused; unseeing over her shoulder back toward the hallway.   It’s as if he’s in a trance, spellbound. His body sways slightly, a testament to the many drinks he has consumed. And when his lips finally part, she is genuinely startled by the choked plea that falls from his lips, shattering the heavy silence.

“Why?”

It’s a single word, but it bleeds with a wound far beyond what her eyes can see. Her chest tightens at the sound. She knows exactly what he’s asking, and when he finally meets her gaze, prickling tears blur her vision. Mismatched eyes are pained, as if he’s been betrayed by something unspoken or an action left undone. Sakura understands now with frightening clarity that she has hurt him in some, small way. The ice buries itself in her gut, twisting and clawing at her insides with bitter regret. She has genuinely hurt Sasuke. The idea surprises as much as it confuses her.

“Sasuke-kun...” she whispers, but her voice is broken. Her throat is dry, and she swallows the bitterness in her mouth thickly. The hot tears are threatening to spill. She is coming undone in front of him. But nothing could have prepared her for what happens next.

“...!” His eyes widen abruptly when the Uchiha clamps a firm hand over his mouth.

And Sakura knows exactly what’s about to happen.

Oh, know you don’t! Inner Sakura shrieks with a shake of her fist.

Instinctively, she summons her super-strength, scoops the grown man into her arms in—you guessed it: bridal style, and screams: “Shan-naro!” As she heaves him with all of her might into her arms. She bolts across the hallway and gallops up the stairs as fast as her feet can take her.

The second she crashes into the tiny bathroom, she stumbles forward and loses her footing in her haste. Sasuke is thrown from her arms and his spiked raven head smacks the hard tile the same time her pink head hits his broad chest.

“Umph!”

However, there is no time to worry or express her apology because she is instantly—roughly—thrown backwards and onto her back when Sasuke shoves her off so hard that for a terrifying moment, she thinks he is going to attack her. But to her surprise, he clambers desperately across the floor to the pristine toilet basin where he retches violently.

Oh.

Sakura winces at the sound, but not from disgust. As a medic, she has grown desensitized to bodily fluids and it takes way more than measly vomit to turn her insides. She winces at his misery; his entire body shakes with each gag. There is an overwhelming urge to comfort him, so she carefully crawls over to his hunched form and places a gentle hand between his shoulder blades where she rubs small, soothing circles upon his back.

“It’ll be okay, Sasuke-kun,” she coos softly, “I’m so sorry.” And it’s not just this particular situation she’s sorry for. “What were you thinking, drinking so much? It’s not like you to be so... so... irresponsible...” Sasuke isn’t exactly the first person who comes to mind with that word, and she cannot believe she’s even saying it. It strikes her with disbelief: she’s reprimanding Sasuke Uchiha. Scolding him, like a disobedient child.

For the first time in her life, she is angry with him. Her hand drops from his back and she has to curl it into a fist to keep from smacking him over the head. As if it’s Naruto sitting in front of her rather than the almighty  Uchiha prodigy.

The Uchiha in question gives a final retch, spits, and then lifts his head when his hands fall away from the basin and he sits back on his palms, chest heaving. His tortured expression tugs at her heart and Sakura sighs, replacing her hand on his back and resumes the circular motion she hopes is comforting.

“Feel better?” After freeing his stomach of all that alcohol, she’s sure he does. However, it looks as if sobriety isn’t coming to him anytime soon. In short, Sasuke is still wasted.

“...” he pants, mismatched eyes half-lidded and heavy with exhaustion.

“Here...” she stands up to close the toilet lid and flushes the contents before she makes her way to the bathroom sink, where she opens the mirrored medicine cabinet. “I don’t have an extra toothbrush or anything, but...” She plucks the oblong see-through bottle off the shelf, swishing the light blue liquid around. “This should help.”

She kneels next to him on the tile and offers him the mouthwash, only to choke when he takes it from her hands and throws it back like it’s a water bottle, gulping the contents.

“What the—Sasuke-kun, no!” She screeches in horror, ripping the bottle from his hands and spilling the blue liquid all over the place. “This is mouthwash! Not—not a drink!”

Sasuke is genuinely startled but it doesn’t seem to register what he’s just done. He blinks at her innocently.

Has he lost his mind?!

“You—!” Her lips flounder in shock, torn between disbelief and awe at what he has just done and the clueless expression on his face that is maddeningly adorable. She shakes her head, “J-Just... never mind.”

She takes his hand to try and help him to his feet—he snatches it away from her, “‘mm fine.” He grumbles, but he is far from it. “...I don’t... need... your help.”

Sakura’s hands are stern on her hips. “Like hell you do!” She reaches out to reclaim his hand but he pulls it away. Anger roars to life; the medic inside her is on his case instantly, “Don’t you dare catch an attitude with me when you’re the one who did this to yourself in the first place! You’re a mess! But I’m not just going to sit here while you puke your guts out and fall all over the place! I’m not going to let you hurt yourself just because you’re stubborn! So shut up, and let me help you!”

“...no.”

Her eye twitches.

She reaches for him a final time, but when he promptly smacks her hand away, something inside of her snaps.

She bristles and her hands ball into angry fists. Oh, hell no! Inner Sakura shrieks. “Fine.” She bites out, “If you’re so confident that you don’t need my help, prove it. Stand up.” And she herself gets to her feet, crossing her arms. He glares up at her, and when he doesn’t move, she taunts: “Well, go on then. Stand up.”

Slowly, carefully, he places both hands on the toilet lid and tries to heave his body upward unsteadily. It’s almost too embarrassing to watch. When he is finally on both feet—albeit swaying dangerously—he smirks triumphantly down at her. He teeters back and forth, and Sakura knows he’s going to lose his balance at any given moment and she almost hopes he will: Maybe he’ll learn his lesson! CHA!

He wobbles backwards and forwards, and then it finally happens.

“...!” Mismatched eyes widen when he tips a little too far backwards. Sakura reaches out a hand, but before she can do anything to stop it, Sasuke grabs onto it desperately and she’s pulled down with him. They both topple backwards into the bathtub behind him—the pink shower curtain, along with the metal rod, comes raining down upon them and swallows their tangled form. Sasuke’s arms move instinctively; they are tight and protective around her, as if the sound of the falling plastic around them had scared him into thinking something far worse was falling on them.

Sakura’s heart thunders mercilessly, and with her ear pressed tightly against his chest, she can hear his heart pounding in sync with her own.

It is deathly silent. Sasuke’s warm, minty breath puffs heavily against the top of her head and she is too terrified to move. The air punches from her lungs when his arms instinctively clench around her in response to a loud clatter that shatters the silence and echos in the claustrophobic space. A shampoo bottle, she realizes but barely registers. The only thing she can comprehend is the thundering of Sasuke’s heart beneath her ear. It’s racing, and something screams at her that it isn’t from anxiety alone.

It’s here that she dares to look up at him, and when she does it’s clear that he is shaken. His wide mismatched eyes meet hers in pure horror. And if that wasn’t enough to sober him up, the fact that she was on top of him, encircled in his arms, awkwardly straddling his hips, inches from his face, probably was.

She swallows thickly.

“Are... are you okay?” The tips of their  noses are millimeters from touching.

“...yes.” His hot breath fans her lips.

Everything about this small moment is amplified. He is beautiful, and she is reminded that it has been a year since she’s last seen him. His one obsidian eye is flecked grey, no longer flat black in her close proximity. His lashes are full and a smidgen longer than they once were. Longer, sharp, raven bangs fall over his still-widened eyes, stopping just short the tip of his aristocratic nose. She inhales, and he smells of mint and a touch of alcohol, but his natural scent is there. He smells of sandalwood; the burning of a campfire on a late summers evening. She is reminded of how much she had missed him.

She is reminded of how much she loves him.

Sasuke stares back at her silently. She can tell by the look in his eyes that he is still not quite sober, but is the closest he will get to it until he sleeps it off. His lips part, as if to say something, but they close and he says nothing at all.

“I’m sorry.” She breathes, breaking the heavy silence, and she feels him startle lightly at her sudden words. “I shouldn’t have egged you on like that. It’s just—all I wanted to do was help you, and you made me so mad and—“

“Sakura.”

“—I should have come to see you. I didn’t even know you wanted to see me, I had no idea; honest! I mean, I missed you so much and asked about you and how you were doing—“

“Sakura.”

“—and it sounded like you had a lot on your plate and I didn’t want to annoy you or—or—bother you in any way because I figured if you wanted to see me, you would just come find me and—“

“Sakura.”

She blinks, pausing in her nervous ramble to finally pay him attention. His mismatched eyes are soft around the edges, contradicting the snap of his voice.

“I...” he swallows, as if his next words are hard to say. And then he rips it off like a bandaid. “...missed... you, too.”

Everything Sakura had left to say vanishes out the window. Just like that, her mind is blank. She blinks—once, twice, thrice. Had she heard him correctly? “W-what?”

“...You heard me the first time.”

“I—“ She has no idea what to say. But then she is left confused. “Then... how come you didn’t come to see me?”

He promptly looks away from her, turning his face toward the bathtub nozzle. He is silent, and Sakura doesn’t expect him to respond, but when he does, she gapes in disbelief.

“I waited.”

Huh? Inner Sakura works quickly to figure out what he means by this, but she comes up empty-handed and is left bewildered.

“For... for what?” She asks, mentally ripping her hair out in suspense. Just get on with it already! For what! “Sasuke-kun!” When he doesn’t answer, she shimmies out of his arms and playfully smacks his chest. “Answer me!”

He narrows his eyes at her, clearly not appreciative of the gesture, but turns his head back to her in response.

“Out of curiosity.” He supplies plainly, but Sakura knows that’s not the real answer. She frowns at his stubborn ego.

“Out of... curiosity? That’s it?” She tries not to let the lie get to her, but the tears are already prickling in her eyes. Perhaps... she was wrong and it was not a lie after all. “So, my feelings are just... entertainment for you?”

His eyes widen marginally at her accusation, the realization of what he has just unintentionally implied hitting him like a slap to the face, but before he has the chance to fix his mistake, she is climbing off of him and steps out of the bathtub.

“Sakura—“ he reaches out a desperate hand to stop her, but she’s already heading towards the door.

“Save it.” She pauses in the doorway, but doesn’t look back at him. “I’ll call Naruto to get you home safely. The next time you decide to get hammered, make sure you end up at the right place. I hope this was entertainment enough for you.” And then she is gone.

‘I hope this was entertainment enough for you.’

He blinks in astonishment. The alcohol still swims through his veins, but the only thing he can feel is the talons of regret clawing at his insides. He has no idea how it all went sideways so fast. Her words are venom, and they sting far more than he expects. He struggles to climb out of the bathtub and untangle himself from the shower curtain, but the room spins and the curtain wraps around his ankle the second he tries to stand and he falls forward. The ache in the back of his head from his earlier fall pulses. He feels sick again, but there is nothing left for his stomach to expel. The bathroom tile is cold and sobering against his cheek; he closes his eyes and wills to stop the world from spinning around him. But it doesn’t. It’s as if he is prisoner to a merry-go-round and his punisher will show him no such mercy.

Stop. He pleads silently. And there, helpless and abandoned on Sakura’s bathroom floor, he decides he will never touch alcohol again. He has made a fool of himself. And, as snippets of the night’s earlier events flicker unbidden behind his eyelids, he cringes in mortification. He remembers falling flat on his face in the living room, and her slender fingers in his hair.

‘You can’t stay here on the floor.’

He remembers Sakura carrying him on her back and up the stairs when he had just about threw up everywhere. He remembers her gentle hand on his back, her soft words. He remembers latching onto her wrist and asking why she hadn’t come to see him. He remembers the broken look in her tearful emerald eyes.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I... see.’

And when he opens his eyes, they immediately take note of the tiny red smudges upon the white tile that lead to the doorway. Blood. And then he remembers the explosion of shattered glass.

‘Wait—Sasuke-kun, there’s glass everywhere!’

Her pained expression, her genuine concern that he would step on the shards and in turn hurt herself instead. Why? Why did he ask the idiot to bring him to her house? More importantly, why did the idiot listen when he was clearly in no state of mind to be making decisions!

Sakura had probably been peacefully sleeping in bed before Naruto dumped him at her doorstep. Before he made a mess of her night. Before he placed such an unnecessary, heavy burden on her shoulders.

Embarrassment. Shame. Guilt.

All at once. Sasuke Uchiha wishes the  floor would swallow him up. But it doesn’t, and the gravity of reality holds him to the floor. He has to fix it. Sakura’s last words ring in his ears, deafening him. And then his own.

‘Out of curiosity.’

He scoffs at himself. Just what the hell made him say that? Sure he had been curious—way more curious than he’d ever admit to himself—as to when and if she would come to see him, but it was definitely not out of amusement. Sasuke doesn’t play with people’s feelings. And he sure as hell isn’t getting a kick out of Sakura’s. No. He waited because... because...

He blinks, unable to finish the thought. Because...? It’s here that Sasuke is confused. He doesn’t realize that he has waited—subconsciously avoided her—all this time because he is scared of facing Sakura after everything he’s done. His pride would never allow such a thought. Sasuke Uchiha isn’t scared of anything. But in the end, he is only human. He had been scared that over time, she would change her mind, and that she would not forgive him. Scared that she would look at him with the same disdainful eyes everyone else did. He was a traitor; a criminal. He has held her bare throat in his hands and has tried to run a Chidori straight through the very heart that loved him.

Scared, because he knows he does not deserve to be forgiven.

And scared, because she knows this, too.

Instead, Sasuke settles on believing he has waited because it isn’t his business what she does. Or who she decides to see. Or whatever she decides to do in her free time. He doesn’t care that she hasn’t come to see him. Just... a little surprised. But when she had rambled in his arms only minutes ago, saying she had missed him, that she had asked about his absence, that she had truly just respected his space, relief overwhelmed him. He had released an internal breath he never knew he was holding. It flooded his chest with warmth. Filled him to the brim with reassurance. Of course Sakura still loves him.

He clenches his teeth. Now look what he’s done! He’s ruined any chance of a normal reunion, and he hates himself for it. The room spins continuously, but this time Sasuke is determined not to let the alcohol win. He clambers to his feet, using the wall next to him for support, and takes a minute to steady himself. Okay. One step at a time. Carefully, he places one foot in front of the other, creeping  across the bathroom as if he’s crossing a cliff’s ledge over great heights. He has to make it to Sakura before she can call Naruto. He has to make things right. He is dizzy, he stumbles, his eyes fall in and out of focus, but he does not stop.

When he reaches the doorway, he clings to the doorframe and leans out, looking left and right. Where had she gone? He stops and listens carefully. Just barely, he can make out the sound of tinkering glass, and he knows she’s in the kitchen cleaning the mess that is his fault. He frowns. Not because he has found her, but because she is downstairs. As in, he will have to make it down a flight of perilous steps without breaking his neck. However, his determination does not waver and he steps out into the hall.

Gripping the wooden railing, he braces himself. The steps are steep, and as he looks down at them, it’s as if the bottom is miles away. One foot. Another. He steps down painfully slow, and the step creaks under his weight. He stops and listens for any sign that would indicate that she’s heard him, but the shuffling of glass and a wrinkle of a trash bag eases his nerves. Good. He wants to prove to her that he is not a burden. That even drunk, he is perfectly capable of handling himself. Another step. As his confidence grows, he lets go of the railing. Perhaps, if he just showed her his effort in making it down to her, she’d see that her feelings for him were far more than just entertainment. Perhaps, if he—

His foot misses the next step.

“F—!” Is the only sound he can manage before he is tumbling painfully down her steps.

When he lands, it’s hard and damning. His face slams into the floorboard with a sickening crunch and he knows he has surely broken his nose. The air is still with a finality that has him closing his eyes in defeat. And when he hears her hurried footfalls careening down the hallway’s wooden floorboards and ever closer, he wants to disappear forever.

“Sasuke-kun!” She is screaming, half out of her mind with worry.

But it’s the last sound that rings in his ears before he slips unconscious.

————————————-

Sakura nearly goes into cardiac arrest when she discovers the Uchiha still as stone at the stairs landing. Her heart hammers like a war-drum in her ears, and she doesn’t know what to check first. She collapses to her knees next to him and takes note of the slight expansion of his rib cage—but just because he is breathing doesn’t mean something else isn’t broken. He is on his front, and so she carefully flips him over; only to squeak in fright at the crimson liquid that trickles from his nose.

“What the hell were you thinking, idiot!” She cries despite not being heard. “You could have snapped your neck! I can’t bring back the dead!” Her chest tightens at the very idea and any reason she has justified to herself abandoning him in the bathroom, melts into regret. She should have never let him out of her sight. He had seemed like he was almost sober when she left him last!

Well, you were clearly wrong! Inner Sakura berates angrily. Now look what you did!

Tears spill over the palm that covers her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Sasuke-kun!”

After a thorough check of the unconscious Uchiha, she heals his broken nose and sprained wrist. He is lucky. She hauls him into her arms and carries him to the living room couch where she lays his head on the pillow and pulls the blanket to his chin.

He looks adorable, but she can’t stop the tears from rolling down her face to appreciate his sleeping expression. She kneels at his side and lays her head upon his chest. It rises and falls slowly.

“You... jerk.” She mumbles as she turns to face him. He remains undisturbed, peaceful in his drunken slumber. “I...”

Little does Sakura know, Sasuke has been conscious since the moment she had picked him up off the floor. The movement had stirred him awake, but he did not dare open his eyes to face her. He pretends to sleep, holding on to every word she breathes.

“I wish you had just come to see me; even once. But no. You just had to make it a big deal. You’re a such a drama queen.”

Sasuke has to physically hold back a quiet snort of laughter. His breath hitches, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“But... You’ve always hated me, haven’t you?” He has to refrain from frowning. “You say you miss me, but do you really? Naruto says you never ask about me. The ‘next time’ that you promised me before you left never came. Was that a lie, too?” Sasuke wants to shake his head, but remains deadly still. “Are you a liar, Sasuke-kun?” She sighs and he feels the warmth on his chest. “You never seem to want me around. You say I’m annoying, but what does that even mean? Why are you really here tonight? You hurt me over... and over.”

Sasuke is uncomfortable. He now feels as if he is intruding on something he most definitely should not be hearing. But he can’t back out now. He can’t find the will to stop her, and he realizes with horror that he wants to know more. She shifts.

“And yet...” the weight disappears off of his chest. And when she speaks next, the proximity of her voice nearly startles him. Her warm breath is on his face, as if she’s merely inches away. His heart picks up the pace and he doesn’t know whether it’s from fear or anticipation. But nothing could have prepared him for what she says next:

“I’m so in love with you.”

His heart drops. As if he is free falling. The shock that shoots through his body at her words is both exhilarating and terrifying; his eyes snap open. He sits straight up, nearly head butting her, and instantly, she screams and falls backward onto her elbows, where she scrambles farther away. “S-Sasuke-kun! I—I thought—!”

“Sakura.”

She looks at him as if he’s the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen. He wants to smirk at her reaction, but the weight of her words sit heavy on his heart and he can do nothing but stare.

“Is that true.”

Her lips flounder and she looks as if she has seen a ghost. When the shock finally fades from her face, he sees that her cheeks are stained pink. Her lips lift in a wide, almost cheeky, grin and it fills him with bliss. She scoots closer until she’s kneeling beside him once more. Her expression is shy, and her eyes are everywhere but his face. His heart thunders mercilessly.

“Sakura?”

She isn’t looking at him. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

Her eyes meet his.

“I love you, Sasuke-kun.”

“...!” His eyes widen. Sakura’s confession is bold, but its spoken with such conviction that his mind double takes. As if it goes without question. As if there was never a doubt in the first place. It was firm. Real.

She really loves him. Even after everything he’s done. Even after the trouble he’s put her through tonight. Even after he’s broken her heart so many times.

“I—“ he is winded. His chest heaves with an unknown emotion and he is unprepared. He is scared.

Scared, because his heart won’t stop pounding.

Scared, because he realizes with frightening clarity that he just might love her, too.

Any last lingering effect from the alcohol is gone. He is stone-cold sober.

The world behind her fades away, and there is nothing left but her glittering eyes. She is startlingly beautiful in this moment. She leans in slowly, carefully. He knows what she’s going to do, but he can’t move. His heart thuds in his ears. Her face inches ever closer, and a sheen of moisture sits pretty on her lower lip. He can’t take his eyes off it. And just when he leans down to close the gap—

Bam! Bam! Bam!

They freeze in place, eyes wide, their lips a mere whisper apart. A very familiar voice shouts from outside the house.

“Sakura-Chan! Sakura-Chan!” Naruto’s fist slams upon her front door and it echos in the silence of her house. “Hinata-chan said it was probably a bad idea to leave the bastard here! Bring him out, I’ll take him back home! Sakura-Chan! Saku—!”

She rips the door open, bristling with anger, flames in her eyes, and Naruto immediately shrinks in fear. “H-Hey! W-What’s—?”

She promptly smacks him over the head. “Beat it, idiot! Sasuke-kun is sleeping and if you wake him, there will be hell to pay!” Inner Sakura is already pushing up her sleeves.

Naruto throws his hands up defensively and immediately backs down and off her porch. “L-Loud and clear, Sakura-chan!” And then he scurries off down the road and disappears. She breathes a sigh of relief, but the second she closes the door behind her, she squeaks when she is pressed back against the wooden slab.

“Sleeping, huh?” Sasuke smirks, and Sakura bites her lip nervously. He presses a hand against the door just next to her ear, and cocks his head marginally to the side in amusement. “...Are you a liar, Sakura?” He mimics her earlier words.

This seems to snap her from her trance, because she’s defensive immediately. “Hey! You weren’t even supposed to—“

He dips his head down to meet her lips—

Only for him to change direction in the last second, falling past her head, meeting the wooden door slab face to face as a dizzy spell claims his conscious. He groans before collapsing to her shoulder and falls sideways and onto the floorboards with a ‘thud!’ before she can react.

“Sasuke-kun!” She squeaks, kneeling at his side immediately. “Are you okay!”

She shakes his shoulders insistently, but when a light snore drifts to her ears she freezes, and then deflates with disappointment. Sasuke is fast asleep.

You’ve got to be kidding! Just when he... he was just about to... Inner Sakura cradles her knees to her chest, mourning the loss of her first kiss with the Uchiha.

She sighs heavily, hauling Sasuke into her arms for the last time and lays him gently on the couch, hovering just above his peaceful face. She studies him, lingering on his just slightly parted lips. His cheeks are still flushed, so Sakura slides a palm under his raven bangs to feel his forehead. No fever, she confirms with relief. The alcohol must have finally got to him. She starts to pull her hand away, but her fingers trail down to his high cheek bone where they sit hesitantly. Sasuke had really been about to kiss her.

She melts into a wide smile at the thought. Leaning in, she brings her other palm to his face, cradling his sleeping attractive features. Slowly, carefully, she presses soft lips against his.

Sakura wants to laugh at the absurdity of the entire night; at the great Uchiha falling on his face, tumbling down the steps, falling into a tub, drinking mouthwash... but she can’t help but only love him more. Because, as it seems, the Uchiha is not always the perfect prodigy; his mask slips every once in a while, just like everyone else. Sasuke Uchiha makes silly mistakes, just like everyone else. Sasuke Uchiha can be reckless, just like everyone else.

And, as Sakura inches back from his lips to admire his undisturbed expression, she realizes with a giggle that Sasuke Uchiha is, after all, only human.

FIN.

[hatake-no-sharingan]

Time travel AU (Part 2: Minato’s promise)

AU Summary: The world is falling apart, and the Sage of the Six Paths sends Naruto back in time to find his parents and collect the thing that will help him and Sasuke save the shinobi.

Link to part 1: HERE

Part 2 Summary: Naruto tells his parents why he’s come back in time, and asks them to help him save the world. Y/N notices there’s something off with everything that’s going on, but Minato steps up to keep his family safe.

Characters in part 2: Y/N (as Naruto’s mom/ Minato’s wife), Minato and Naruto

Warnings: None

A/N: This is for @itsao-mine, my amazing reader. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, beautiful. Hopefully you’ll like reading it as much as I’ve loved writing it. I hope everyone else enjoys it too <3 Thank you for being so supportive of my writing.

Minato’s promise

Minato’s mouth dropped wide open. For a moment Y/N thought she imagined the whole thing, but she wiped her eyes and both Naruto and her husband were still in front of her. Minato’s initial shock had transformed into his signature smile.

The resemblance between the boy and him was uncanny. They had the same yellow hair and expressive blue eyes, as well as his easygoing manner. At the same time, he spoke in the same distracted but cheerful way Y/N did. He had the same expressions as her. There was no denying this was their child. But how was it possible?

As if reading his wife’s mind, Minato spoke.

“Naruto, this is very weird so you’d better have one hell of a good explanation on how the same baby she’s carrying is also sitting here all grown up, being a full fledged shinobi.”

Naruto’s stomach made a noise, revealing his hunger.

“We can talk about it over dinner, you both need food to restore yourselves, and so do I, remember I’m still eating for two.”

Y/N served three generous bowls of ramen and had her two ninjas take a seat at the table.

“Wow mom, you really do know how to cook. This is so tasty, maaan I love it. Did you know ramen is my favorite food? Have I mentioned it yet?”

“Well it’s also my favorite food. Don’t I cook it for you often? In the future I mean.”

“Ummm, not really” he laughs nervously “anyway, let me tell you what’s going on. It’s kinda messy really, and a hard story to tell, but I’ll try my best”

Naruto does try his best to summarize everything without getting much into detail, and his parents seem to catch on a bit. Naruto is surprised that they actually believe every word he says and seem keen on helping him, which is a relief, really, because he’d be lost without their support.

“So you’re telling us that in the future, 17 years from now, an evil princess who mysteriously fell from space ages ago comes back to life so she can plant a tree which enslaves all of humanity and feeds on their chakra and the only way to stop it is if you and Sasuke Uchiha, who just so happens to be the cute baby I saw a week ago in my friend Mikoto’s arms, seal her. For that you need to collect a special type of chakra from the Kyuubi because it’s exactly released at the time of your birth and a scroll from the Uchiha Clan which Sasuke is trying to find at this same time, and that’s why the Sage of the Six Paths gave Sasuke the power for one trip in time with his, what did you say it was called?” Says Y/N.

“Rinnesharingan”

“Right, rinnesharingan. So did I understand correctly?”

“Yes you have it all right. So will you let me attend my own birth so we can save everyone?”

“If it’s for the sake of the world I will, right, yondaime?”

“Of course, my love” says her husband.

“Thanks mom, you’re truly the best”

“Come here, let me hold you for a bit, you must be exhausted”

Naruto moves close to his mother, and she embraces him in a tender way he’s never felt before. She strokes his forehead and tries to reassure him that she and his father will help him through it all, but a deep fear settles in her heart.

After spending a few moments like this, and noticing her son is exhausted, she prepares the guest bedroom for him and carefully tucks him into bed.

Once Naruto has fallen asleep, Y/N settles in her couch with a cup of tea in her hands.

“Minato, I’m scared”

He sits on the couch next to her and starts massaging her tired shoulders. His hands are a balm on her fearful soul.

“It’s okay, I’m here for you. I’ll protect you three.”

“I’m worried, for the baby, and for Naruto. I know they’re the same person, but still I worry for them both.”

“I know honey, but think about it this way, if Naruto from the future showed up here, that means the baby will be alright” his warm voice tranquilizes her.

“Still, there’s something off with all this. I mean I do believe him, he’s our son, and I’m oddly happy to have met him. To know that this baby will become such a strong willed shinobi. He’s everything I’ve dreamed our son would be, but this feels weird. He didn’t know who I was. And he makes comments that make me think he hasn’t spent much time with us, Minato”

He knows. He noticed it too, but he didn’t want to say anything about it either.

“Hey, it’s alright.” He planted a kiss on her bare neck “Maybe he didn’t recognize you because you look different in the future. We’ll age, princess. As much as we hate to admit it.” He chuckles kindly, trying to brush off his own concern.

“Yeah I guess. He’s a distracted kid too. Guess whom he got that from?”

Minato laughs gently and encircles his wife’s waist so his hands reach her tummy.

“I’ll take care of my beautiful family. There’s nothing more precious than you. It’s a promise” They fall asleep on the couch, tangled in a loving embrace. Y/N knows her husband’s word is sacred, so she knows she’ll be okay, but there’s a part of her that still feels uneasy.

……

The next day they avoid talking about the topic, and instead, Naruto decides to enjoy the feeling of having his family together until his birth comes up. He helps Y/N do even the most basic tasks, and takes care of her protectively. Minato, Y/N and Naruto fall into a nice, familiar routine for the rest of the week, and Naruto even goes with Minato a couple times to the Hokage office and helps him sort through the day’s work.  Time flies by, and he wishes he could stay here longer, but before he knows it, the day before his birth arrives.

He’s alone with his dad in his office, they’re settling everything so they can return to their house where Y/N is waiting for them with a delicious dinner.

“Hey dad, can I talk to you before we go home? There’s something you need to know. I, uh, well I haven’t had the heart to say it in front of mom, but there’s a reason I didn’t recognize her when I came here.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

Naruto’s stomach shrinks as he wishes he had another answer to that question.

“Yeah”

“I’ve had the feeling, that something might go wrong. That’s why I’ve had Kakashi follow Y/N, taking care of her. The sandaime and I planned the birth, so she’ll be surrounded by security, but I guess there’s no way to avoid it right? I’m just very sorry we don’t get to watch you grow up. Y/N has been very excited since she found out, having a child has lifted her spirits so much.” There’s a deep sadness in his eyes, but he brushes it away, replacing it with a soft chuckle. “But, hey, let’s worry about death later. Now tell me, did you grow up happy? Were your needs covered? Did you have love surrounding you?”

Naruto was taken aback by his dad’s inquiry, he hadn’t expected that he’d care more about his wellbeing than the news he’d just given him. Warmth spread through his chest and a thought crossed his mind I couldn’t have asked for a better family.

“Yeah, you could say my life has been nice, dad. You and mom have nothing to worry about.” His cheeks felt a bit hot “I eat well and I have many friends.”

“Tell me about it kid, I want to hear everything. It seems this may be one of our few chances.” Minato reached out and ruffled his son’s hair.

“Well, where should I start? Oh! I know, this will make you happy. Kakashi is my Sensei. We’ve been on many adventures together. He’s the captain of my team. I’m there with my two best friends, Sakura and Sasuke. Well, things with Sasuke have been rough, and that’s maybe another topic, but he’s the first person who deeply, truly understood me, and I’ve never given up on him. I never will.”

On the way home, Naruto keeps telling him stories about how he grew up, and Minato enjoys every single one of them. When they get there, he acts as if nothing had happened, and Naruto knows, he’s trying to find a way to protect Y/N.