Fight or Flight.
-- AU --
She was already standing at the edge of a cliff... he just made her take the final plunge. ItaSaku. Slight SasuSaku.
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"Another coffee, little lovely." Nother caw-fee, lih-tle luhvley.
Sakura smiled at him, feeling her jaw ache as she fought to keep it in place. Another eye-crinkling smile was sent her way and suddenly she didn't feel quite as bad as she first had. Flicking her eyes at the old clock - which was shaped like a car tyre, and probably partially made from one - and glancing down at her temperamental wristwatch, Sakura frowned again deeply. Slight jolt of happiness forgotten.
A few strands of her long hair escaped the braid she had carelessly tied it back into and irritated her. The noise was starting to diminish now; a sure sign that people were starting to get ready to leave. This meant home time, this meant dinner and trudging back home to her lifeless flat to pour through medical tomes until she passed out on her couch with the news still going. What a sweet life she did lead.
Snorting softly to herself she squeezed the dishtowel a little too tightly in her hand and squirted some more of the lemon scented cleaner onto the table top.
The almost purring roar of a deadly fast car made her look up from her work despite herself.
Leaning back to look around the cracked, red vinyl of one of the seating booths Sakura could see out into the parking area. Two figures approached, barely able to be seen outside of the dim ring of illumination the flashing sign above the door gave off. The car they had obviously arrived in was dark coloured and slickly engineered; lurking amongst the old trucks and battered cars like a deadly panther.
It had to be the most expensive thing for miles and miles and miles.
Craning her neck she strained to see more of the approaching men - their size and build made their gender apparent. Confident that they couldn't see her through the tinted glass she gawked... like some small town fool that hadn't ever seen people like them before.
They both wore heavy black trenchcoats that were sleek and new looking. The edges of the shirts that could be seen above the collar were also black, but they caught the neon lights of the sign in a strange way and looked sinfully soft and expensive. They didn't linger by the threshold and slid over to the nearest booth within moments. One reached out a slim, pale hand to signal her and she saw the shining, red cloud cufflink that held his shirt sleeve in place. She swallowed heavily with her heart drumming with something like excitement and began to weave her way to the back.
She lovedthe city goers; with their uncaring, flippant attitudes and their pompous disdain for everything she was surrounded by, including herself. One glance and she felt under dressed in her scuffed flats and cheap polyester dress, but they tipped well and their conversations (amongst themselves, of course) were interesting to eavesdrop on.
Fumbling, she extracted the notebook and pen she kept in the front pocket of the tiny apron that tied over her black pencil skirt. Her eyes studied the tiles for a moment before she dragged them up to look at the two she would be serving - not wanting to appear too eager to see them.
He hadn't shaved in a few days, but the dark stubble dotted his jaw, coupled with the twin lines of stress that ran parallel on either side of his straight nose, did little to detract from one of the most handsome faces she had seen in her entire life.
"W-what can I get you, mister?" Wincing inwardly at the first stutter Sakura clicked the pen and held it poised over the paper.
"A coffee; black, no sugar. And -" He trailed off, dark eyes flickering over to the man sitting opposite.
While the first was lithe and built more like a sprinter than anything else, he was all bulk and would have towered over her had he been standing up. As it was they were almost eye to eye. Her inquistive eyes moved over the his own, almost glowing, startlingly pale eyes and the strange tattoos on his cheeks. Not that she was a stranger to men that had decorated themselves with the permenant ink art.
Sakura thought she had seen it all; semi-naked women that appeared to dance when muscles were flexed, heads shaved to provide more human "canvas", names, faces... His were a pair of gills sketched on his face. Too weird.
"A beer - no - make it two," he said, grinning widely at her and showing an impressive set of teeth.
She nodded, semi aware of the two sets of eyes that were positively burning holes into her form. She chastised herself as she noted her own hand shaking; with her hair colour she should be used to people it.
"Will that be all...?"
The dark eyed one nodded curtly and she slunk back to the small area behind the shining counter. Her hands were still shaking as she flipped off the beer caps and accidentally sent one flying to the ground. Cursing, she left it for later and managed to get the coffee without burning herself or spilling it everywhere. Balancing the tray on one hand she swept over to the counter in a practised move.
Neither paid her any attention, and Sakura frowned at her own need to show off - however slightly.
The tattooed one looked at her first and watched as she pushed the bottles towards him. When he turned away from her to take a sip she saw the earring he wore in his right earlobe, which had a single shark's tooth dangling from a small hoop. For some reason that made her smile. She saw the questioning look that they both flicked at her and didn't know what to say; I really like your jewellery, Mister.
"Is there nothing else I can get you?" Sakura said, wishing the words did not sound so corny and suggestive.
Gill-face looked at her for a moment and something flashed in his eyes, a hint of a leer played on his features. Just as he drew breath to deliver what would no doubt be a masterpiece of intelligent speech the dark-eyed-one shot him a look that promptly made him deflate. She began to turn away, fully expecting no more words to be exchanged... A hand slid into her pocket like a serpent.
Sakura froze for a split second - the heat of his fingers soaking through the thin fabric of her apron and even the skirt beneath it. His skin felt too hot juxtaposed by the thin, sharp knife that pressed into the fabric covering her abdomen. She ached to strike and flee, but she stayed still. Her life mattered.
When he first spoke she had thought his voice silky, but it was harder than silk - smooth, cold and unfeeling like glass or marble. His lips didn't even seem to move and she could have sworn that she saw a flash of red in his dark irises.
"Do not speak." The words carried a hint of steel. "There is nothing wrong."
She nodded like a puppet and hated herself for it.
"You never saw us, we were never here," his voice was low and almost hypnotic, it washed over her senses smoothly.
Then the spell was broken when his half-lidded eyes snapped fully open and he pressed the knife in almost hard enough to draw blood - but not quite. A second later he tilted it away to show the roll of notes that had been slid into her apron pocket without her noticing, Sakura let out the breath she hadn't known she had been holding in.
"Good girl," the tall one added, showing a crooked canine. She wanted to rip it from his mouth and use it to carve up his face.
Then they were gone, brushing past her and revving up their expensive car. She didn't sleep that night; just stared at the ceiling with all the rage she had kept buried for so, so long boiling up and tearing apart her insides like acid.
The air in the dingy, tiny apartment she had been born in, and at this rate would die in, welled up and choked her. She needed to get out of here. Rolling over she stared at the boring, bland, beige carpet that was older than her and still didn't show any dirt. All of the money she had been given was spread out on it. Sakura stared at it like a starving animal would a scrap of meat.
It was filthy money; dirty, disgusting... more than she had ever seen in one place at one time.
With it she could not pay for medical school tuition, or the living costs that would accompany being a student. With it she could buy a car and she could fill that car with fuel and she could run. There was enough left to live off for a little while after that until she managed to get a job - she would live out of the boot of her car if she had to.
Throwing off her thick covers she stood and feverishly began to throw her clothes and best books into a duffel bag. In followed several old photographs, a tin opener, a lighter, and a small sewing kit. Taking one glance around the room and the money on the floor, she left it and went outside with the bag still clutched in her hands and walked until she reached the shop down the road. With a heavy bottle of orange juice in her hands and a sandwich with some leafy green bits and mushy tomatoes Sakura sat on the edge of the pavement and looked up at the sky.
She didn't feel happiness, or hope, or anything that might have been expected - not unwillingless to leave a place that had always been a sanctuary and a prison... Not anything. Just a sense of moving forward, it felt right.
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It just wasn't meant to be. She should have known that nothing would ever come so easily.
A drunken driver with a boot full of butane canisters. Her future literally went up in smoke.
She went back to work like she usually did, got another dingy little apartment, and shut away the memory of her near, painfully near, escape - like it had never mattered, or never happened.
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A cool, dry hand slid across the sensitive skin of her inner wrist making the hairs of her arm stand on end. He might have noticed because she heard a soft noise of amusement.
"Did two men come here recently; one would have had long, dark hair and looked like me?" His tone was not questioning; it was demanding.
"Lots of people pass through."
She brushed him off and went back to cleaning like she always did when she had nothing else to do. Sakura refused to bring her remaining medical textbooks here - her eyes scanned the dingy, crowded space - they didn't belong in a place like this.
"I'd appreciate it if you assisted me," he said, gruffly. Creeping behind her like a malevolent spectre. She looked back and met his gaze without backing down.
Other girls might have quivered and broke down beneath those dark eyes, but she didn't.
"I'm sure you would."
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her - really looked at her; no doubt sizing her up. The last man that did that had followed her home... and ended up with a black eye and a brutally dislocated jaw. Those self-defense classes were something alright; she couldn't use any weapon except her own two hands and feet. Somehow that felt more right than any cold blade between her fingers.
The eyes the watched her move; caressing her figure with long, lazy strokes; made her feel empowered instead of uneasy. They shouldn't have. She pursed her lips and worked the cloth between her fingers.
"What time do you finish?"
"Past your bed-time," she snapped, unnerved by his sudden closeness and the way even his breath felt cold.
He stepped back with an expression that was so like a petulant child that she almost laughed in his proud face. He looked like he might use a dose of reality anyway. Smiling inwardly she almost delivered a cutting comment that would be soothed with a smile accompanying his coffee, but then she smelled the blood and saw the dark stain on his black shirt.
"At nine, I finish at nine," she blurted out.
His face didn't seem to move at all, but suddenly his expression was smug. While she re-filled her cup he accidentally-deliberately brushed his fingers against her own. When they stepped outside into the night she looked almost shyly up at him from beneath a fringe of thick eyelashes.
"Come back to my place. I'll fix you up." The way she said it, it almost sounded like a question.
She was sure he was trying to give her a comforting smile, but it had quite the opposite effect. Sakura saw him wince as he walked and reminded herself why she was doing this. He was hurt, she would help. When the moonlight shone down on his face she greedily drank in the patrician features that were eerily like that other man's just... prettier, she supposed. Though, she doubted he would appreciate that.
They had to be related somehow, which was probably why this one was so intent on finding the other.
Another look shot in her direction and she was starting to get antsy. Maybe this was not the best idea in the world. And, maybe that was the understatement of the century.
"How far to your place?" His voice was husky and drove up a renewed sense of pity and urge to assist. He must be in pain to be asking, he seemed to proud to say without great need.
"It's just -"
Whatever she had been about to say was completely smothered by a kiss that could barely be described as that. Rather, he smashed his lips onto hers with the force of a speeding train and stole her breath in a way quite different from those cheesy Hollywood films she did not like, thank you very much. Her breath hissed between her teeth as he moved to plant hotter, somewhat more palatable kisses on the tender skin of her neck, hands everywhere.
One cool hand brushed against the warm skin exposed between her skirt and top - reminding her too much of the other dark-eyed one and his knife and serving as the final push her anger needed. Her fists shot out; one caught in his own larger hand, the other getting a decent hit into his stomach. It was like punching a wall with the thinnest layer of foam on top.
"What are you doing?! You complete asshole! I'll turn your pretty face into mincemeat,"she spat, launching herself towards him.
Blood. On her hands. Him panting beneath her; breath wheezing past his thin lips. She reeled backwards and half-crouched there - on the withered grass - with her hands balled into little fists at her sides.
"You don't deserve my help, but I'm not going to leave you here like this."
He looked at her with those pitch black eyes and she wondered what he had been thinking when he tried to seduce her. Another ploy to wheedle information out of her somehow - she wondered what had made him so desperate. The look in his eyes was like that of a person drowning; angry, desperate, but above all pleading. She was reading too much into this, she needed to get him back to her place.
His breathing was still shallow, but more ragged by the time they managed to get there. The arm slung heavily over her shoulder was more appealing than any of his other hasty, forced touches previously. For a moment she caught herself appreciating the feel of his hard, warm side against the curve of her own soft waist and cursed. After that the most prevalent feeling was that of the drying blood on her hands, beneath her nails, somehow smeared on her cheek.
It took so many stiches she lost count and so much cleaning, so much blood stained water, before he looked a bit better and she could wipe some antiseptic over the wound and bandage him up all nice and tight. He talked while she worked; feverishly, frantically. His fingers were no longer frigid; more like clammy and cold now. Sakura knew he didn't mean it when he grasped her hand a little too tightly - or her hair, or her clothes; whatever was closest.
Painfully young. Her age. He looked it as he grimaced in the sickly, flickering lights and talked in that hoarse, but never rough voice, that rubbed her just the right way.
"Uchiha Sasuke," his teeth were bared as he hissed this," for the love of God. I'll always carry that name as a reminder. I can't die here. Can't... Got to kill him - for what he did. Killed them all. Got to kill Itachi to fix it."
"Shh, I know," Sakura kissed his temple because it was the closest thing to her and squeezed his hand,"the pain will stop soon."
Feverish eyes met her own and she wished for money. The hospital wouldn't even look at him when neither had money, or insurance. Instead, he would have to make do with her; a pathetic, washed-out imitation. Even when she was done he wouldn't sleep. She didn't want to give him anything to make him sleep because he had already had far too many painkillers. His eyes held her there as he tossed and turned, still trying to hide the pain after all that time, but his eyes gave it away.
Don't leave me; they said. So she didn't.
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He - Sasuke; she reminded herself - left, but they came back.
This time she barely breathed as she made a show of sauntering up to them. One Uchiha Itachi was as handsome, terrifying and quiet as she remembered. His partner, who she still did not know the name of, was still big, hulking and inclined to chuckle at anything and everything.
"Hello again,"Sakura said, politely, pen at the ready.
She hoped the familiarity she showed would remind them both that she remembered the last time - she would keep her mouth shut so they wouldn't need to show her the same... attention. With Sasuke she had known she stood a chance of fighting and winning - with Itachi every nerve cell in her body knew that flight would be the only option. Threat almost oozed out of his pores; and it made him unfairly appealing in a way that made the hairs on her arm stand to attention against the sleeve of her loose shirt.
"Beer and whatever you've got that won't make me hurl." Charming.
She wrote down an order for the bland soup they sold and finally met the eyes she had been purposely avoiding for the entire, short meeting. The electric pulse that shot down her spine had nothing to do with fear, and it made her wonder what his hands could do when only his eyes did this. If Sasuke had made her feel a fraction of the feeling he did she might have let him finish what he started.
"Tea, please, Sakura." Dark eyes swelled over the nametag pinned at her chest and lingered a moment longer than they should have. "And a word with you, outside, afterwards - I've been lead to believe your employer has notified you..."
He had. The old fool had. He only said, though, that some business men that dealt in a "delicate" area needed a waitress for some kind of meeting they were holding and he had considered her the best candidate. Probably because she was young and female. Delicate meant illegal and with these two involved a deep feeling of foreboding filled every fiber of her being.
"Of course," she answered, after a pause.
While pouring his tea she considered scalding her hands to have a reason to leave. She didn't. He was all politeness as they stood outside and spoke about the "rules"; she should not leave the main room with anyone for any reason, she should go to the kitchens during the main part while they spoke, she must not let them push her around, she must not speak of this to anyone... They would pay her well, he said, as he guided her towards the car, opened the door and let her slide inside.
As the tinted windows obscured her view of the outside world and they got into the front seats she thought of her mother and her father, and then of Sasuke, and wondered if these men would kill her for what she was about to see. She wondered if she was a fool. She wondered when she had lost all the kick and the fire that used to get her into so much trouble. She wondered if she had just stopped caring.
---
"Motherfucking pink hair." Sakura heard one hiss behind her.
"Yeah, but do the cuffs match the collar, hmm?"
"Why don't you ask?"
"As if I'd have to ask."
A hand touched the small of her back - by all respects a neutral area - and if he hadn't gripped her dainty fist in his own she would have smashed the glass on any part of him she could reach. Itachi made it look as though they were just walking calmly together - inside she was a writhing mass of boiling hot anger. He brought her to this horrible place where she was treated like an object, and he was the only one close enough to strike
"Want to find out if the cuffs match the collar?!" she spat at him as he propelled her through the doors to the back rooms, twisting in his iron grip.
"Don't be ridiculous," he muttered, far too close to her ear," I'm beyond insulted you're comparing me to Deidara and Hidan, of all people."
"Insulted?" she hissed," I've never been so insulted in my whole life."
"You'll be paid well for this," Itachi murmured in his quiet, sinfully delicious sounding voice.
"Stop making me sound like a whore," her voice twisted and cracked as she grimaced.
"It was never my intention."
His thumb ran circles on her hand before he let her go to walk outside of her own violation. It felt as though she had known him forever, but perhaps part of that was because of all the things Sasuke had told her about him. The fact that he was a killer - not of some person unknown; of his own family. It made her blood run cold when she thought about it, but not enough to dampen the flames he seemed to be able to ignite within her.
Sakura had never wanted anyone this much. So much it made her sick, and ache, but still pine at night when she was too tired to fight anymore. She should have outgrown such girlish things so long ago, but this wasn't puppy love - she soon realised - this was covetousness. She wanted him all; she wanted his hands and his skin and his voice and she wanted him everywhere.
"Let me drive you home."
She did. And all the way she revelled being there, so close to him, and she felt fear to her very core. He could kill her so easily that it wasn't even funny, but he made her feel so alive she wanted to scream.
"I'm staying in the hotel at the end of town."
"My house is right here," she heard herself say, as though through a fog.
A derisive, self-mocking laugh was her only answer. Sakura looked over at him with a deep, stormy frown only to have his magnificent dark eyes narrow with predatory intent and wipe it off her face. When he kissed her she saw sparks beneath her closed eyes and felt like a jolt of a adrenaline had been pumped straight into her palpitating heart.
"I've been taught better than this, let me buy you dinner first. Whatever you want."
As though what she had been implying was worse than murder of his closest kin.
---
Afterwards they went to his room and all he did was hold her by the small of her back like she was a fragile, glass figurine. When the door closed with a snap Itachi kissed the delicate skin just behind her ear and leaned against her in a rare display of softness. The long strands of his dark hair hung over his shoulders and brushed against her suddenly bare torso in the lightest of caresses.
"I want you to come with me this time."
She opened her eyes and peered up at his face - he looked haggard and raw, but still heart-stoppingly handsome and unreadable.
"To what..." she breathed, " Itachi."
He didn't say anything; she watched as the muscles in his arm and chest tightened.
"A life of running and hiding," Sakura continued, "of feeling their blood on your fingers every time you touch me and knowing he's out there somewhere - always chasing and you always evading."
There was a lengthy pause as one hand snaked up her bare skin to rest lightly at her neck. The touch didn't make her tense and strike out instead she relaxed beneath it. The crease between his brows proved that he hadn't expected that reaction.
"Why did you come here?"
And then she smiled that breath-taking, dazzling smile that made him blink down at her and devour her features with his photographic memory.
"Because I love you, you filthy, murdering bastard. I love you."
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Another one - this time ItaSakuSasu (sorta) in a weird sort of AU universe place. I think I have a serious allergy to Canon - maybe I should get me some help for that. :D
Hope you enjoyed!
V.V.
(Oh, by the way, if any awesome person would like to beta this bad boy, then I would be delighted to the extreme.)