An Unspoken "I love you"
Sakura ambled leisurely across the newly-cleaned engawa, her bare, petite feet growing chilled against the bamboo. She paused and tossed her pink head back until the deep blue expanse of the evening sky monopolized her emerald vision. A contented sigh slipped softly from between her lips.
Her eyes slid shut; the song of the birds crooning good night and the tree branches' rustling coming alive in her sensitized ears. Ancient and constructed of beige brick, the compound walls towered around the courtyard, beyond the surrounding trees, and out of Sakura's sight. A large mural of the Uchiha fan had been painted onto the tallest wall nearest the entrance of sturdy, crimson pillars. The paint was gradually fading.
Absently, the pinkette entertained the idea of asking her teammate if he would like to repaint the grand emblem.
Some day.
She found herself glad that the isolation of the Uchiha clan had protected the compound from Pein's demolition of the village. It felt like forever ago, yet the knowledge that the family was forced to live apart from others in Konoha still created an ache in the pinkette's heart.
Sakura took in the view of the gray, azure mountains swelling like the backs of turtles in the distance of the ocean-like sky; a hazy mosaic of light, woven with various shades of blues, pinks, and yellows, floated on the horizon before it disappeared all at once, the sun's rays reaching out as if like arms of gold grasping for the branches of the Fire Country's evergreen trees.
The young medic breathed deeply. In the absence of the brilliant sun, the moon claimed dominance in the black, expansive sky, accompanied by the endless colonies of blazing stars, each individual one glaring down upon the earth like white lightning.
Once the darkness registered in Sakura's mind, she hastened towards her temporary room.
It was almost attached to the compound's main dwelling, which was located at the center of the traditionally built grounds with its old and grandeur architecture. She shut the lovely shoji screen behind her and shed her medic's clothing in favor of her favorite sleepwear and warm, forest green robe. The bed was unbelievably soft beneath her knees. With a sigh, she settled several medic reports onto the low table near her bed and began writing. The last living member of the ancient household had allowed her the room, which, though small, was embellished with the most expensive of furnishings expected of the bloodline clans. Its only downfall was the blanket of dust that covered every open space when the pinkette first moved in.
A sad smile crossed her face as she remembered the events that led to her actually living inside the Uchiha compound.
As well as rescue and a level of acceptance, Sasuke steadily became tormented by a barrage of nightmares at the end of the shinobi war; forever proud and independent, he had kept the secret, completely willing to bear with and handle the torment himself.
Alone. That stubborn, stubborn man, always content with being alone.
Sakura shook her head and yawned. Her hand moved gracefully across the paper, although her kanji were certainly affected by her drowsiness.
And so the Uchiha had endured the length of his two-year probation under the agony of the memories, with the torturous knowledge that not even sleep could bring him an ounce of much needed solace. Neither Sakura nor the rambunctious Uzumaki Naruto had ever known someone to have dealt silently with so much emotional turmoil; nevertheless, Sasuke had been unable to hide his lack of sleep for any length of time after his probation had ended and the fully reinstated, infamous Team Kakashi was assigned missions once again.
His usually perfect fighting style had become awry, and his attitude increasingly more and more bitter, more and more introverted, if at all possible.
With a threat to put the stoic ex-rogue back onto probation, the Hokage demanded that he allow a skilled medic to observe his behavior in hopes of permanently ridding his subconscious of the horrid nightmares that were keeping him from remaining an effective ninja, both during and apart from missions. Of course, the devious Slug Princess knew exactly who Sasuke would grudgingly ask—or dully demand, in his case—to serve as his live-in medic.
Sakura had been in shock when he showed up at her apartment doorstep with a look of forced contemplation on his usually stoic face. She would be lying if she claimed that she was immune to the effect his mere presence afflicted upon her beating heart.
"Move in with me," was all he had said, the phrase alone causing Sakura to nearly pass out at its implications. Yet, feeling no need to explain himself, Sasuke had merely shoved a mission scroll her way, the contents of which described what was expected of the chosen medic, including mission duration and pay.
The first few months of living with her wayward teammate had been beyond difficult, and had tested the very foundation of her endurance and determination. His coldness was expected, but it still was painful. Only Naruto's frequent, uninvited presence had provided any relief to the tenseness between the pinkette and the raven-haired Uchiha, using his lively antics and ramen-loving ramblings to their fullest.
Nighttime was the worst.
Sakura would discreetly wander around the courtyard surrounding the main house from evening and well into nightfall. When the air was crisp and the night completely black excepting the dim light of the moon, she would rush into the house, over Sasuke's threshold, and to his bedside at the slightest sound of commotion.
The first night had been absolutely terrifying; he would toss and sweat violently in his sleep, pale lips whispering fervently about "Nii-san," and at times silently shrieking livid curses to the forlornly plain room. Until that one moment, when Sakura was frantically bent over his twisted form, caringly stroking his forehead with chakra-soothed hands, no one else in the world had comprehended the true misery Sasuke endured in the middle of the night.
Alone . . . alone because he wanted to be alone. And vulnerable despite his strength.
Sakura wondered exactly who he cursed in his sleep.
Danzo. Orochimaru. The elders. Madara. The masked man.
Only Sasuke knew, and that alone killed her.
And so Sakura stayed, night after night and day after silent day. His emotionless offers of accepting the extended probation threatened by Tsunade, just so that she could leave his home, went completely unheeded by his loyal teammate. She remembered the feeling of his contemplating stare burning into her back when he walked into his kitchen before the sun even began to rise, only to find her busily shaping onigiri and slicing fresh tomatoes he did not remember purchasing. Truthfully, his sleeping habits had indeed improved drastically month after month, and he no longer relied on sleeping pills, which he had been greatly averse to in the first place.
With a sigh, Sakura put down her brush and ran a hand roughly across her large forehead. She scoffed at the paperwork she had filled out for Tsunade. Though he certainly slept better and the nightmares became more and more infrequent, there had been barely any change in the vividness of Sasuke's dreams when he did have them; the only treatment she was able to record as having remotely worked was the soothing tea she made for Sasuke almost every night before he went to sleep.
Her gaze darted to the calendar that hung tacked from the wall across from her bed.
Sakura gasped and jumped up from her lax position on the comforter, eyes widening in realization of what it was the night commemorated.
Massacre.
Something fell to the floor and shattered in one of the far rooms. The sound echoed forebodingly in Sakura's ears.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Cursing her disregard for the anniversary of the incident that had forever impacted the one she cared for most, Sakura ran as fast as her toned legs could carry her across the courtyard.
She entered the main house and rushed into the young Uchiha's room, where she saw him. He was sitting up in bed with his head in his hands. The sweat on his skin was profuse and the intense rise and fall of his shoulders let Sakura know that he was panting and short of breath.
She slowly looked down and allowed her verdant eyes to peruse the state of the floor. Pieces of white ceramic—ceramic that had once made up the antique teapot belonging to Sasuke's mother—littered the flooring in a mess of innumerable, misshapen pieces.
Sakura bit her lip and kneeled to begin picking up the broken ceramic, ignoring the fact that it was completely dark in the room and her teammate was ignoring her.
He must have taken the tea with him to bed and set it on the bed stand, she pondered as she cupped her hand around the little pile of white pieces in her left hand, her other hand searching the ground for more. Once the pieces were neatly discarded in the wastebasket at the corner of the room, Sakura stood awkwardly and wrung her hands before her as she looked down at Sasuke, who was still hunched forward and seemed to be looking at his feet. Little lines of red beaded upon the skin, where he obviously stepped carelessly. Or, perhaps, even on purpose, in self-retaliation for breaking his mother's teapot.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura called softly to him, "if you broke the teapot during one of your nightmares, there's no need for you to bla—"
"Get out, Sakura."
She winced at the command and knew right then that he was well beyond the point of being royally pissed.
"Sasuke," voice stronger now, term of endearment eliminated, "tell me . . ."
His head snapped up and the pinkette nearly stepped back at the sight of the tomoe spinning furiously in his now bright vermillion eyes, "What makes you think I should tell you anything. Now get out."
The dullness of his voice was a frightening contrast to the features of his face, twisted violently with anger, but Sakura was not fazed. They had gone through this same routine for almost the entire duration of her stay with him at the compound. At first, the biting hostility of his words had sent her scrambling back to her room to cry over her failure, but not anymore. Instead she marched over to where he was seated on the edge of his bed and kneeled on the ground directly in front of him.
His elbows rested upon his knees and his hands hung limply against the inside of his legs. Trying unsuccessfully to catch his gaze, Sakura reached up and wrapped tentative fingers around his wrists. She tugged beseechingly and was rewarded by Sasuke's eyes, which were a deep black once again, gazing weakly into her own. The fight and defensiveness that his nightmares always hoisted upon him, due to the pain they caused, had already begun to seep out of him like it always did.
"I'm sorry," the pinkette murmured earnestly. She maintained eye contact with the Uchiha. One of her hands released his wrist in favor of gently moving his long dark bangs out of his face so that they could see each other more clearly.
Their constant interaction had ended the coldness, the awkwardness. And that end of silence had fostered renewed trust they hadn't experienced since before Sasuke had left the village. And that trust . . . well, had caused them to grow beautifully close over the course of her stay.
It was just hard to nourish their tentative bond of friendship while Sasuke still could not find it within himself to overcome the past. Such pain would not and could not disappear in mere months, but the truth of the matter was that Sakura should have moved out long ago; however, her stubbornness—her love—exceeded practicality and her duty as a shinobi. Some called it her downfall, but she and those who knew her were privy to the fact that it was the source of her strength.
And, quite possibly, the source of Sasuke's pending inner peace. Naruto helped to set Sasuke's redeeming into motion, and Sakura promised herself that she would be the one to see it through until the end.
But the Uchiha's lack of response tonight was frustrating her already exhausted mind. She began to get up, but was roughly pulled down again by one slender, pale, calloused hand. A gasp left her lips as she collided unexpectedly with the ground and her eyes darted upwards in alarm. Sasuke was almost glaring at her again, but his eyes were filled with determination, not anger.
The pacing of the pinkette's heart once again slowed gradually to a smooth beating.
Silence pervaded the room, until he spoke, words lilting from his own exhaustion. Sakura suddenly felt guilty and selfish for claiming to feel so tired herself.
"Despite what I know now," Sasuke rasped in the darkness, "the image of my brother's Tsukuyomi, all those years ago . . ."
And he didn't have to say anymore. Sakura leapt up from her position on the floor and sat next to him, placing a warmly reassuring hand on his shoulder.
With a silent sigh, Sasuke let his hands rise to grasp Sakura's face in an unacharacteristic display of tender emotion. His eyes searched her own for her thoughts. Her thoughts and feelings.
"You can't leave," he whispered fiercely.
The pinkette gasped and immediately wrenched desperate fingers into his hair. Her other hand wrapped around the Uchiha's muscular back, searching for the red and white crest upon his black shirt and twining the smooth fabric into her hand; she pulled him against her and burrowed her own head against his until the rosette and ebony of their hair comingled.
"I'm so sorry," Sakura repeated, lifting her head to face him again, "Your nightmares were becoming less frequent. I thought . . ." an ache was residing in her throat and she swallowed to mitigate the familiar feeling of tears, "I shouldn't have stayed so late at the hospital—I forgot what tonight was and I just-I just . . ."
She was silenced by warm lips softly covering her mouth. He was pleading with her in the only way he knew that was remotely gentle and not brash—pleading with her not to go, to leave him to face his nightmares and the haunting memories alone once again. It was a battle to try and lessen the dreams, but her presence was all he needed, despite the harsh defense mechanism that caused him to lash out when he felt threatened.
And since he was eight years old, that was the only coping mechanism he had.
Sakura knew this. She understood. And she still loved him, the fact being so evident that she did not have to speak the words for Sasuke to sense that her dedication remained.
With a whimper, Sakura pulled away from the heated kiss and whispered the reassuring words in his ear,
"I wouldn't leave if you wanted me to."
And he was on her again, smothering her moans with his mouth and sliding his tongue against the closed seam of her lips. The urgent threading of his fingers through her smooth hair had her gasping wantonly, and Sasuke took advantage of the action to warm her tongue with his own. His hands reached up to gently cradle her face, stroking his thumbs along her cheeks and jawline, where he chose to lay his mouth's passionate assault after breaking away from Sakura's gasping lips.
His urgent hands ran tenderly over the curves of her body and slid often against the pleasured arch of her back. All sense of balance seemed to become irrelevant in their minds and they found themselves falling backwards onto Sasuke's soft bed, all talk of nightmares and the past fading away into nothingness.
At that very moment, Sakura knew two truths:
She would not be leaving Sasuke's room that night.
And she would never be leaving his side, because she loved him so strongly, so deeply, that the words dwindled in comparison to her dedicated, loyal caresses.
A/N:
Wow, this piece really didn't turn out how I originally intended, but I think I like it. Do you? It ended up being mostly description rather than dialogue because I wanted to emphasize the emotion, and the happiness people sometimes sacrifice for a brief time when trying to help the one they love through personal crisis.
I think a lot of people are repelled by this couple because Sasuke certainly has not been easy to love, but I think the persistence with which Sakura is loving and holding onto the memory of the Sasuke who truly is—the Sasuke who fearlessly stood to protect his teammates in the face of danger—is the beauty of this pairing. There is something so genuine and not cliché about the possibilities in Sasuke's and Sakura's relationship. And if you love SasuSaku as much as I do, please do not forget it.
Thank you very much for reading and please, please review!