Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

One-shot; my first sasusaku (which is my otp) story.

Soteriophobia
-fear of depending on others-

As he lies still on the cold ground, pink hair flashes behind his closed eyelids. His fingertips brush against the crimson liquid spilling out of his body now like water, but he can't quite find it within himself to care.

Sakura had always been a Healer. Her too wide jade green eyes trained carefully on Naruto's arm as she smoothes a rainbow-tinted band-aid over his cut; lips softly humming as she cut him apple slices by his bedside; soft, forgiving hands tangled in his hair as she embraces him desperately, as though he is the only thing keeping her alive; as though she would disappear unless she kept hanging on.

Would she try to save him if she were here now? His throat feels slightly tight as he remembers- that had always been his place. But she does not need him now; she doesn't need to be rescued.

Naruto was a Fighter. He dreamed and shouted until his throat was sore and held his ground until he was at Death's door, but he did not give up. In this, he was strong-he was what Sasuke had always wanted to be. Eyes the color of the sky flashing with anger, determination, life- but never apathy. Never the goddamn lifeless look he's seen reflected in his own eyes when he stared in the blood-stained glass and why couldn't aniki have chosen someone stronger to meet his fucking challenge?

Where he was tired and forever waiting for Death, Naruto was always awake and so very Alive. Sasuke wishes he hadn't lost that ability, but he doesn't know how to make the feeling come back, and all he knows now is a cold apathy; a welcoming, familiar darkness.

Sakura healed and forgave, Naruto fought and dreamed. A Destroyer had no place in their world.

But even as he waited for oblivion to take him, he couldn't help but wish he had been a Builder instead, rather than always destroying the precious fragments of the only people who had ever mattered to him.

--

"I can't believe he took it." Though her ribcage feels as though it's on fire, her green eyes are startlingly cold and calm, because he had always been able to leave an imprint on her where no one else did. "Why? When he knew it was certain death, why?"

"Sakura, one day when you are very, very tired, maybe you'll understand." The Fifth Hokage's answer is quiet and unnaturally cryptic. She narrows her eyes, understanding the underlying meaning Tsunade is trying to give her.

"But I have been tired. I've been everything, shishou. It doesn't excuse him." Her eyes flash, wounded, hard emerald- still open heartbreak- and Tsunade slowly nods, remembering the childhood days of the young woman standing before her now. Yes, Sakura understood- to an extent. But she didn't see the look in the Uchiha's eyes when he stood before her and requested a suicide mission. And Tsunade was almost certain she had never heard the boy cry before; in fact, she was fairly certain no one but his older brother- gone now, to somewhere his brother could never join him- had ever witnessed it, but Tsunade had. And she suddenly felt every bit her age, and more; and so very, very tired.

"I know, Sakura. But it was his will, and I couldn't refuse him." Her breath halts. She could have, technically. But after hearing his quiet racking sobs, as his perfect cold exterior at last crumbled, she just couldn't.

"Why would he come back, then? Why would he state that one of his dreams was to rebuild his clan, if he was planning on just killing himself after killing his brother?" And Tsunade watches as Sakura's eyes grow misty with memories and her fists clench with sudden determination.

"No. This is not what Naruto and I fought for." Her voice is haunted, almost inaudible. "We deserve more than this."

"Sakura-"

"No. I don't care if he's dying as we speak. I have to try." With that, she runs out of the room, her heart pounding in time with each step of her foot against the ground. Her head is spinning as she falls through the doorway of her apartment desperately; every breath halting and painful as she throws supplies into her pack and slings the bag across her body.

Her skin brushes against the cold bench- I love you with all of my heart and please please please just stay here, with me- by the village gates and instantly charges, as though remembering the frozen texture of the marble stone; as though subconsciously welcoming back a memory one can never forget.

--

"I thought you might come." His low voice is cold, apathetic, and reveals nothing. He must be in pain, she thinks wildly. So why can't she hear it?

She isn't aware for how long she stands there; staring sightlessly at the ground where he lays, so much blood seeping around him, his beautiful eyes closed. At first, she isn't sure he was still alive, but then his chest rises and she wants to fall to her knees in gratitude.

"I-I-" He lets her struggle for words helplessly for a few moments before speaking.

"Sakura." His voice is harsh in the silence. Even now, she annoys him, she thinks. Where she might have ran off to be safely alone before she burst into tears at the same tone as a young girl, his voice only served to sober her and still her thoughts now. "Let me die."

"I can't." Her voice is a pained whisper as she falls to the ground beside him and with a trembling hand, pushes aside his white haori. His skin is as pale as the snow she admired, for winter had always reminded her of him and she couldn't help but love it, no matter how frozen and bitter it left her.

His eyes suddenly open, and they are not the famed crimson Sharingan of the Uchiha clan. They are the beautiful dark onyx, tinted with dark grey, of Sasuke.

"Of course." His voice is strangely quiet, as though speaking more to himself than to her. Does he really not see her, even now? "You are the Healer. Naruto is the Fighter…"

"Sasuke, I still-"

"Don't." The word stills her movements, her eyes shut tightly so he can't see how he is shattering what is left of her. "Look at me, Sakura. Even now, I'm destroying you. I do nothing but hurt you. You and Naruto both."

"But I don't want to leave you." He can hear the tears thickening her voice as he closes his eyes, struggling for breath now. Her hands lift from his chest, and he wonders if it's hurting her just to touch him. Strange words, he thinks. Shouldn't it be the reverse? Wouldn't it be him leaving her?

"Why do you say it like that?" He asks carefully, wincing as the slight movement of talking brings even more pain.

"Because I'm barely holding on!" She shouts suddenly, her hurt dissolving into anger that cuts into his skin silently, more painful than any kunai slice. "But I tried for you. I went on for you; I learned for you, I saved for you. But I can't stay waiting forever. I can't watch you die in front of me and just remain here, thinking of what could have been. It's not fair, and I don't care if I'm being selfish. I'm so tired, Sasuke. Even when we were children, you never saw me. Now you think you are doing any of us a favor by just leaving us again? Goddamn you, you cold, apathetic bastard! We're nothing if you are gone forever. What did we fight for?"

"I didn't ask you to."

She ignores the sensation of her heart falling apart at his words. "No! I deserve more than you leaving again!" Her voice has reached a pained scream now, but he doesn't wince. Doesn't retaliate. His voice is calm as he replies-

"I can never be what you want me to be. You think you can save me. Naruto thought he could bring me back. You think that we can be whole then. But neither of you can bring back someone who is already dead. What you can do is to let me go."

"No. Not again. Never again." With that she slams her palm against his wound, the blood spilling scarlet over her long, pale fingers as effervescent green chakra flows like a waterfall finally being released from a dam.

"I will be enough," her desperate promise is the last thing he hears before he loses consciousness. His lips still on the words he is about to speak- but I can never be enough for you.

--

He's sick of the sight of white sheets and the scent of antiseptic in the air. It's grown painfully familiar and his heart thuds slow and sick in his chest as a chair scrapes out of his vision and someone approaches his bedside.

"Heard you almost died, teme." Naruto's voice is hoarse and frighteningly similar to the sound of his own after he screamed so many times within the empty walls of his broken house. "If you really want to leave, then I guess I should know better than to think we could ever stop you. But I bet you didn't know that you're killing her, too." And before Naruto can give in to the agonizingly strong urge to slam his fist into the beautiful face of Uchiha Sasuke, he turns and runs out of the room.

--

"Sakura."

Her back is straight and her shoulders tensed as she slowly turns to him when he calls her name. It's been five months since he last saw her, pumping chakra into his body to save him. Naruto told him Tsunade sent her on another mission almost immediately after she returned. Her eyes are haunted, and he thinks that someone who heals others should never look so broken. Her body is thin and shivering beneath the worn red fabric of her dress, her exposed skin covered in a multitude of bruises blossoming darkly over her pale skin and barely-healed cuts. His eyes slowly follow the soft lines of her body down to her knees, which he can see are shaking slightly.

"What- what is it?" Her voice is shamefully unsteady, and she winces, closing her eyes.

"I never got a chance to tell you." He says slowly. "That you always have been."

"Always have been what?" Her eyes snap open and focus sharply on him. She's learned to never hope, but it can't keep her heart from trembling and her fingers from shaking beyond her will- and is this what it feels like when we finally begin to ascend?

"Enough."

Her breath comes to a halt.

"You said that Naruto is the Fighter, and I'm the Healer," she says. "Then what are you, Sasuke-kun?" He is sure his ears are deceiving him. He hasn't heard that affectionate term spill from her lips since they were thirteen and she was crying her love for him and begging him to stay with her.

"The Destroyer." His head angles down, dark bangs falling to cover his eyes.

"We weren't meant to be." Her voice is quiet, curious, as though tasting snowflakes on her tongue for the first time.

"No," he agrees, ready to turn away for the last time and to forget he actually had a heart he was leaving with her.

"But- you forget that it's all a cycle. You may destroy everything…but I will heal until the tiniest sparks have been reborn."

"I hurt you."

"And I healed. I love you, Sasuke. So let me fix you."

And for the first time since his brother shattered everything, he feels hope. Maybe this time, he could let himself be fixed.

Maybe she could be the one to pick up the pieces and help him rebuild again-

Help him live again.