A/N: Do-do-do… just gonna put this here… I'm still working on my other story (If I Were Me), for any of you reading it, so no worries there. My brain just went loco and this is what came out of it. This will be about 15 chapters when it's finished, and yes, it's named after an awesome song by J. Roddy Walston & the Business. :)
Rating: M for sex and drugs. Woo! Though I promise there's a plot in there somewhere.
Genre: Drama/Romance/sometimes humor. The mood will change drastically from chapter to chapter as I mess around with time skips, so if either of those things bothers you, turn awayyyyy.
Pairing: InoSaku.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Obligatory statement: Don't do drugs, folks. Not even the fun ones.
Happy reading!
...
Day 41:
They're on a mission. It's something that Sakura finds she needs to repeat to herself. If they weren't on a mission, if their careers and the wellbeing of their fellow shinobi weren't on the line, she wouldn't be doing this.
Because it's really fucking hard to watch.
In fact, even taking into consideration all that's at stake, it's still really fucking hard to watch. She used to think the day she looked at Ino and felt pity searing the inside of her chest would be the day the sky burst into flames, but no. It's today. A Tuesday. Nothing special.
Ino is skinnier now than she's ever been, even thinner than on that ridiculous cabbage soup diet years ago. The bones of her pelvis push prominently against her skin. A deep inhalation reveals profound grooves between her ribs. Her clothes, normally fitted tight to her body, now fall about her frame in places like a shirt on a hanger. Fifteen pounds in a little over five weeks. In any other context, Ino might've been proud.
Now, though, Sakura can see every curve, every press of bone, the veins against her neck flush with the skin and pulsing desperately in her anger. She's soaked in the shower and she doesn't remember why. The time lapses are getting worse.
"What the hell, Forehead? You can't just –"
"You pissed yourself."
The fire on Ino's tongue is doused in an instant. She blinks, slowly, trying to recall the event. Her synapses fire at half speed. She can't remember.
"I wouldn't…"
Sakura gives her a look. She's not happy about this, either; she had to get in the shower fully clothed to help Ino regain consciousness. It worked, but she's not sure it matters.
"You did," Sakura says firmly. Jaw clenched, water dripping from her chin, bangs in her eyes. She's pissed. "Right in the middle of a seizure."
She nearly broke the side of her skull against the wall before Sakura rushed in to cushion her head. But, of course, Ino doesn't remember how she'd collapsed onto their tarp-covered mattress in the middle of an argument, back arching, lips turning blue before the convulsions began. She seized like someone strapped a defibrillator to her heart. Not a second went by that Sakura didn't fear it would simply stop beating.
Which is exactly why they were arguing in the first place.
The problem is that Ino can't see herself. She doesn't recognize the terrible things that are happening to her anymore – the edges of her teeth blunted from constant grinding, the explosive mood swings, the paranoia and the memory lapses – all she remembers is that, at one point, she'd felt very, very good. And now she doesn't. She only cares about getting that back.
Already, her muscles are tensed in preparation to bolt out the door. She's tried half-a-dozen times now, but she's far, far too slow with her chakra network singed and knotted like a clump of fine hairs. Sakura caught her at each attempt and felt, each time, the fragility of her body weakly struggling. She let Ino thump her fists against her head. Scream terrible names. Remind her why Sasuke is gone and she couldn't do a damn thing about it.
She doesn't fight back, though. Ino is dying. Sakura doesn't want to be the reason why.
"Ino," she warns. "Don't even think about it."
But it's all she can think about. "Don't be such a prude, Forehead. It's only –"
Sakura cuts her off.
"One more time?" She tongues the back of her teeth irately. "You're being a damn idiot. It's a drug. That's what addicts say."
"It's not just a drug, Sakura. I'm not addicted to heroine, for fuck's sake –"
"What difference does it make?" Sakura shouts, throwing her hands out and splattering water onto the filthy bathroom floor. The grout between the tiles had probably been white at some point. "The type of drug doesn't matter! You're going to die if you –"
"I'm going to die if I don't."
Sakura purses her lips. Tightens her fists around her resolve. She doesn't cry. "No. You won't."
"You don't know that," Ino whispers, and the truth is like the flat of a knife against her skin. It doesn't hurt – yet. But it might soon. "If I'm going to die anyway, you can at least let me die in peace."
"It's not peace! It's a drug that's manipulating your hormones and your chakra and – and you! You can't just –"
Ino shoves her, hard, but Sakura sticks her feet to the slippery bathtub and it's Ino that winds up pitching backwards. Her shoulder hits the wall and her legs buckle underneath her, and Sakura carefully, very carefully, catches her before her head can hit the faucet. Ino is squeezing her eyes shut. Her muscles are solid as pancake batter. Sakura, supporting both their weight in an odd position, lowers them to the graying floor of the tub.
Are we that dirty, or was the tub always like this? Sakura tries to remember. Her eyes wander to the ashen shower curtain, the molding sink faucet, the yellowed rim of the toilet, anywhere but Ino's face until she's run out of distractions. Ino's eyelids are twitching and, finally, she opens her eyes, and Sakura knows the redness and the moisture are not from the shower. Her blond hair seems to be everywhere. Wet, it latches on to every surface, up Sakura's arms to her shoulders. It sticks to the ceramic tub, the off-white tiling and Ino's bare chest, all the way down to her stomach.
It's odd, Sakura thinks, her gaze flickering from Ino to anywhere else at all as if the nude woman in her arms is a high-powered spotlight she can't quite stare into. She looks so different with her hair wet. Now, damp and sticking to her forehead, framing her thin face like a golden wreath, her eyes seems so huge and so blue, almost turquoise in the weak glow of fluorescent bulbs. Her lips are trembling. She's curled in Sakura's arms, and Sakura has been closer to Ino than she ever, ever thought she would be, but not naked. It's stupid that it makes a difference, she thinks, and Ino is terribly smart, but she's always been an incredibly bad judge of her own beauty despite her flagrant confidence, and Sakura is thinking – she's thinking about –
She doesn't know what to think.
She hasn't for a while now, she supposes.
"Hey," Ino mutters. The corner of her mouth pulls up in the first smile Sakura's seen her wear in four days. "Can I tell you something stupid?"
Sakura nods. The water drips from her hair onto Ino's face, but she doesn't seem to notice.
"Do you remember when we were nine-years-old, that time you slept over at my house after that stupid field trip? How I kicked you in my sleep?"
"You told me you had a nightmare," Sakura fills in the rest. "I remember."
Ino's smile grows minutely. "I lied."
"Why…?"
"You were saying Sasuke's name in your sleep."
Sakura's brow furrows. That's hardly unusual for that time period. They'd started squabbling even before she'd ended their friendship. So, what, then? Jealousy? Annoyance?
"I don't understand."
Ino bites her tongue, but her smile widens despite her effort, and then she laughs. "Me neither."
Sakura's heart flutters hopefully at the sound of her unabashed laughter. It sounds normal. It sounds like Ino, before the drugs, before this whole fucking mission blew up in their faces, and for a moment, Sakura wonders if maybe four days has been enough time to recover. Maybe they'll go back to normal. Maybe they'll be okay.
The hope bursts into flames when Ino's giggling morphs into the sound of struggling inhalations. She's choking. Her tongue seems to get caught in her throat, like it's too big for her mouth, and her body convulses violently at the start of more seizures.
"Ino! Damnit," Sakura hisses. She relaxes her grip on Ino's limbs and cushions her head to keep her from slamming it into the tub.
It's shorter than the last one. Is that a good sign? Sakura doesn't know. She doesn't let herself hope.
Fuck this, she thinks vehemently as she waits for Ino to return to consciousness in her arms. Fuck this mission, fuck the Rapture – just – fuck it! We're going home.
When Ino comes to, she takes a deep, shaking breath, and pulls her arms in. Her hands fist in the soaking fabric at Sakura's neck as Ino buries her head into her shoulder, her muscles quivering like gelatin. The trembling of her fingers is strong enough to feel despite her white-knuckled grasp. Her teeth are chattering, lilting her voice into an odd staccato.
"S-S-S-Sakura." Ino's tone makes the woman holding her tense. Sakura's breath hitches, caught in her lungs like fabric on thorns. Ino has never begged anyone for anything, but the desperation is a pitchy whine, clear as the ring of a church bell, quiet as a prayer.
"Don't let me die," she whispers, and this time, Sakura does cry.
She wants to say that she's sorry. It's not rightly her fault, but somehow, it feels that way. Sakura sniffles like a child and wishes the situation was reversed, that Ino had been comforting her instead, because at least that would have been familiar. The hands clutched at her collar loosen to wrap around her body, and Sakura pulls her closer, sobbing and feeling like an idiot for it, because she's not the one dying, after all.
They stay like that for a long time. Sakura forgets to keep track. They've gotten used to the water now, warmed up to room temperature – the warmest it gets in this supposed hotel – and in comparison, Ino's naked skin is hot even through her soaked clothes, almost feverishly so. The only sound is the humming lights overhead, the spray of the shower against the ceramic, and her own shallow, hiccupping breaths, until she feels Ino press their cheeks together. Her lips are right by Sakura's ear.
"I'm so sorry," she mutters, the words slurred as if her jaw is halfway slack, which Sakura suspects it may very well be. "I can't do this anymore."
"It's okay, Ino. It's not your fault. It's – we'll go home, and I'll talk to Tsunade-sama, so don't –"
"Please forgive me."
For what? Sakura wants to ask, but then it hits her all at once, and she realizes what's happening just as Ino's arms flex around her, tightening the hold.
The dozen patches in a plastic bag, sewn between the layers of fabric at the back of her shirt. The result of Ino's hard work, the ones Sakura had at last taken and hidden so carefully. Not carefully enough. By the time Sakura's ripped the other girl from her body, the first one is already stuck to the inside of Ino's wrist – too late – and had Ino planned this? Had she pissed herself on purpose to get them into this position?
There's no time to think about that. Sakura lunges just as Ino frees another from the plastic, and there's a moment where the world seems to contort around her as Ino flails, smacking her upside the head, and Sakura jams her palm into Ino's shoulder to the detriment of her deteriorating body. She screams as if being disemboweled – I'm sorry, Sakura thinks frantically, panicking, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Ino, now dazed with pain, stops struggling, and in her near hysterical urgency, Sakura yanks the patch from Ino's fingers and into her palm.
No, she realizes. Stupid. She's a God damn idiot. Dumb, stupid, dumb –
Not in to her palm, on to her palm.
Sakura blinks at her hand is if the anomaly on it might disappear. A small square patch, white, texture of a bandage, coated in a potent drug that she cannot detoxify. Incredibly addictive, she thinks numbly, absorbed instantly through the skin. Stuck there by moisture-activated adhesive.
"Shit," she mutters. Ino's grinning at her from the other side of the tub. She's so nude. So beautiful, soaked like that. Her skin is smooth and slick and just – so damn warm, where their legs are touching. She looks like a goddess.
Shit, Sakura thinks again, but she's smiling and the thought seems very far away.
The Rapture takes her in an instant.
#
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