Title: The Waiting Game
Character/Pairing: NaruSakuSasu
For: Um...this is embrassing, but since it took me so long to write this story, I kind of forgot who this is for. If that person does happen to read it, please forgive me.
I, however, have an inkling it was for Mrie or Lover of Stories 24, but I'm not entirely sure. All I remember is I was supposed to write this to show the goodness of threesomes.
A/N: Uh, this is my secret OTP3! I've been dying to write an actual story for this pairing, but I've never actually been able to get past writer's block. Until now...
Summary: On the worst of nights, they wait for her, because that is all they can do.
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They wait for her, as always, in a slightly darkened house. Naruto lies curled up on his bed, the pillows and blankets surrounding him like a nest. He snores softly as he sleeps, waking up every now and then to the empty, cold bed.
Sasuke sits on the stiff couch (he ordered it, ignoring Naruto's groan (it's so hard) and smirking when Sakura agreed (it's good for your back)), a stack of newspapers on his left. He hasn't read had a chance to read them for the past week and he starts to dig his way through it.
"She...here yet?" Naruto's bleary tone makes its way down to Sasuke. Without looking up from his newspaper (Monday's business section—stocks are decreasing in Clover) he gives a soft 'no'.
It's still only nine, Naruto consoles himself when he glances at the digital clock nearby. The red digits are the only color in the room and he tries to sleep before he can make the associations with that number.
The house is silent, too much so. Naruto is a quiet sleeper—Sakura's the one who makes the trouble. She tosses and turns, pulling blankets around her into a twisted tangle. She rearranges their limbs in her sleep until they become a mess (but they've always been one).
There is the rustle of paper and in the dim lamplight, Sasuke can barely make out the words. He probably should get up and turn on the ceiling light.
There is a sliver of moonlight coming through the window and Naruto groggily appears in the living room. "—not...back?"
Sasuke puts down the paper on the ground (Wednesday's front page—Drug Trafficking Ring Caught) with the others and picks up the next one. "Obviously not."
"..." Naruto doesn't reply, merely slumps onto the other, softer couch. It's a soft shade of purple (Sakura insisted on picking the colour because there was no way she was going to put up with something bright and orange and hideously-out-of-place). He sinks in about five centimeters, it's that worn down, and nearly falls asleep all the while trying to stay awake. "She's late." "It's one of those patients, right?" "It's a hard night, then." "We should go get her."
"...she has her own schedule." Sasuke looks at Naruto, sees the heavy bags lying there. He's been overworked this week as well but he'll be the last to admit it. "When she's here, you'll know it." That's as close as it will ever be to him telling Naruto to sleep.
He's never been one for words, likes taking the side roads instead of the direct one.
(And that's ironic—no one would guess that when it comes to his actions and insults.)
Naruto nearly nods off before jerking up again. "No...I'll wait..." He repeats the pattern (it's always been a pattern) of dropping and jolting, slipping in and out of dreams.
Sasuke drops another paper (Friday's entertainment section—Jiraiya's Latest Romantic Best Seller) before looking over his shoulder and out the window. The path to their house is empty—he fights down the urge to run because Naruto's snoring and Sakura will be here soon and it's everything but abandoned.
She doesn't arrive when the grandfather clock she insisted on saving chimes ten. Or eleven or even twelve. It isn't until one thirty that she trudges through the door.
Sasuke quietly puts down the last paper and Naruto jerks out of sleep (it won, as they knew it would).
"You all should be sleeping," she tells them, slowly taking off her shoes. Her hair curls over her shoulders like a mess of vines and her eyes are a dark green. Carefully taking off her rumpled coat, she hands it wordlessly to Sasuke.
"Without you, Sakura-chan?" Naruto grins, but this is all a farce. A small tableau of their typical night.
They're waiting for her. It only makes sense—she's waited for both of them as it is.
"I think I could just curl up like this." A weary frown drags itself onto her face and Naruto almost winces.
It must have been bad. Very bad. Sakura doesn't like being quiet on the worst of them—thinks that if she acts okay then it is okay.
(But it never is, those shivers that run through her when she dreams, the way her hands clench tightly onto theirs—)
Naruto leads the way to their room and for once Sakura doesn't complain about the mess and Sasuke doesn't frown at the destruction.
"It was a small family—a mother, her two sons." A tremor passes through her and Sasuke's hand squeezes her shoulder before she collapses on the bed. "It was a fire—started in the kitchen, it was the youngest kid's birthday. He wanted to meet his father and got a bright red fire truck. His brother hated their father—he wanted to be a policeman so he could lock up anyone who hurts others in jail. The cake was homemade—chocolate with mint icing and small sprinkles here and there. It took the mom two months to save enough for that truck."
These are small details, useless details to know when saving someone.
These are the important facts to know when remember someone who died.
Sakura remembers the faces and names of everyone she couldn't save. Sometimes she would whisper about them—Mitsuki died two years ago from today—she was seven and liked apricots. Tsuna was twenty-five and was the idiot you'd see at a bar, hitting on women.
The list went on and on and (Tomoyo and Yuya and Rin and...) it never ended.
They know without asking none of them survived.
That night, Sakura curls up between her boys, a hand gripping each of their shirts like it's a lifeline.
It probably is a lifeline.
Naruto wraps an arm around her shoulder, humming softly and Sasuke drapes his arms over her waist.
She lies there, floating above the current, a line keeping her tied to reality. There is nothing else—no boy crying out in pain, no mother stifling down her yelps.
All she can feel is warmth and, in that fortress of pillows and comforters, that is all she needs.
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