Author's Note:
Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this. There is a tiny part of my profile dedicated to the Original Character bit, in case anyone gets confused. I really hope you like my drabble!
-Kia
He couldn't get away from them, no matter how many times he choked and screamed and begged for forgiveness. The dead were always there, always watching.
His knuckles turned white, hands clutching the edges of the toilet with enough strength to crack the porcelain as he choked and coughed, half-drowning in his own vomit, struggling to breathe while the bile burned a trail up his throat. Even the bitter taste scorching his tongue wasn't enough to completely nullify the imagined tang of blood, thick and metallic at the back of his tongue, making him retch again, his head swimming.
The dead haunted him, their sightless eyes staring at him from the shadows the moon eerily cast inside the bathroom. More eyes than he could count, full of hate, fear and despair, following his every move, staring at him and past him, unblinking and relentless.
It had been years since he had first left the village that watched him grow, his heart ridden with rage and a burning hatred that had blinded him to the very core. Days, months and years isolated, rotting from the inside, a self-proclaimed Avenger with a broken heart and an unquenchable thirst for blood.
A murderer, forever judged by the eyes of the innocent.
The sound of his rasping, half-choked breaths filled the empty room and bounced off the walls, mixing with the thunderous beats of his heart, rumbling in his ears. His forehead pounded as he heaved again, though nothing more came out from his cracked lips but a broken groan. These were the worst moments, when his nightmares caught him in the painful limbo between sleep and reality, blurring the lines and toying sadistically with his all ready tortured psyche. When he was awake enough to feel the excruciating grip of some unnamed emotion clutch savagely at his stomach, but his bleary mind would still draw grisly images of broken bodies with the shadows around this empty house. A house he was not allowed to leave for quite some time if he was to be trusted by those he had let down in the past. A house that had seen enough bloodshed without adding the twisted images burnt forever in his brain, all in the name of revenge.
"Breathe, Sasuke." A voice commanded softly somewhere near his left ear. "Just breathe."
A warm palm pressed against his clammy forehead, holding his hair away from his face. The somewhat familiar voice had issued a simple order, and he found himself trying to follow it despite the nausea. Gulp after gulp of air, the intense burning in his chest receded, a wave of dizziness hitting him so powerfully that his grip on the icy porcelain faltered, and he found himself falling back against a smaller frame, his body wrecked by violent shivers.
There he stayed, slumped against the decidedly feminine body, his eyes firmly shut against the demons lurking in the corners of his mind. The hand never left his forehead, though he could now feel the coarseness of bandages against his skin and the steady beat of another heart against his back. His head was resting back against a small shoulder and, for a fleeting second, he had the ridiculous idea that apples should be given their own holiday, but the second was gone and as it died, the last of his consciousness caught up to him.
"Stop touching me, Yukimura." He rasped through a painfully raw throat, turning his head weakly and opening his eyes to spot a strand of white hair, brushing lightly against a slender, pale neck.
"Stop hyperventilating, Uchiha." Came the terse reply from a voice that was neither whispering nor trembling with fear. The very same voice that had broken the gruesome illusion he'd been caught in moments before.
His body missed the warmth the second he pulled away, his forehead tingling as her hand fell away and broke contact with his sweat soaked flesh, a shudder running up his spine. Rustling fabric behind him alerted his ears to her movement. Before he could register his own actions, his hand darted forward like a bullet, curling with painful strength around a slight, bandaged wrist. A small part of his mind applauded Yukimura Shiinomi for not flinching or even gasping at the sudden, forceful contact. They both stood in perfect silence, frozen in place.
"Where are you going?" Sasuke rasped finally, his parched tongue attempting and failing to soothe his cracked lips.
"You need water." The kunoichi replied simply, her tone even and cool. She wasn't pleading with him, more like stating a fact.
Sasuke made no move to release his physical hold on her, as he absolutely no reason to trust anyone yet, and his instincts ran too deeply, especially when he was at his most vulnerable. Shiinomi, seemed to understand his situation, however, because after a few more painfully tense moments her shoulders relaxed slightly and she took a deep breath, raising her free hand to show she was unarmed.
In a slow, deliberate display of faith, Shiinomi's electric blue eyes met his piercing glare impassively, still failing to complain despite the bone-crushing force being applied to the very wrist that had been soothing his night terrors not a minute ago. Sasuke's dark orbs narrowed at the obvious breach in protocol when dealing with a Sharingan user, wondering whether the girl before him was just that suicidally confident in her abilities, just plain stupid, or a very dangerous combination of both.
"I was on duty tonight." She explained finally, her gaze softening somehow. "I came in through your bedroom window."
She offered no more explanations and Sasuke found he didn't need them either. His fingers loosened and finally released her before reaching shakily for his own forehead, wiping the sweat there.
"Get the lights." He grunted when the young woman made for the door again. Some part of him was grateful that she limited herself to complying without question, comment or complaint.
Of course he knew he was being watched, the Hokage had been certain to inform him of the terms and conditions of his renewed residence in Konohagakure. It was still unsettling to find the younger kunoichi among those stationed around his house to watch that he complied with his house arrest and even more unsettling that it should be her of all people to bear witness to his pathetic loss of control.
Most unsettling of all, however, was to find he not only enjoyed her clean scent clinging faintly to his hair, but that he missed her warmth against him.
Clearly, he had been far more affected by his nightmares than he had first been willing to acknowledge. With a grunt, the young man pushed himself to his feet unsteadily and, with stiff hands, flushed the toilet. He pulled his soaked shirt over his head and used it to wipe his face before tossing it into a hamper, gracelessly stumbling towards the sink, grateful for the icy flow of water that sprouted obediently from it.
A few minutes later found a shirtless and composed Uchiha Sasuke watching Shiinomi walk into his room with a glass of water in her left hand while he leaned against the doorframe leading to the bathroom, calm as a summer day. The young woman was in full gear, her hair tied up in a bun behind her head, aside from the stubborn strand he had observed earlier. A voice in his head whispered that she made a beautiful sight, and that voice was promptly beaten down into submission, midnight black eyes following her every move as she set the glass on the night table.
"Thank you." Sasuke finally broke the silence, startling both of them with the uncharacteristic words of gratitude. In all honestly, they had both been wondering why he hadn't bodily forced her from his home yet.
"Good night, Sasuke." Shiinomi smiled, looking at him over her shoulder, one knee all ready on the windowsill.
Their eyes met and held each other's gaze from across the room and, while the exchange was far more innocent than the previous one, something changed between them, even if neither of them could put their finger on it.
In the blink of an eye, Shiinomi's lithe form had disappeared from his sight. He walked towards his night table in silence, the scent of apples still lingering faintly in the corners of his room.