Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I do not intend to gain financial benefits from this and do not claim any rights to the characters and settings affiliated with the manga.
A/N: A fair warning - this is a depressing piece. It dissects a bit of the unique bonds that exist between Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke, based on a what-if scenario. A longer explanation to this can be found at the end of this page.
A version of this was posted on my livejournal on June 2nd, 2009.
Bonds
(DancingPetal)
Naruto was out of the city, training, the day Sasuke came back. Sakura would not believe her eyes when he suddenly stood in front of her, his dark eyes fixed onto her, his face unreadable. She had a kunai in her hand and let go before she could consciously think about the action. He sidestepped the weapon. "I'm not here to hurt you, Sakura."
Her knees felt weak, even as she grasped the cool metal of a second kunai in her hand, but she held her head high and eyed him. "What are you doing here?"
He stared back at her, almost arrogant in his posture, the way he held his broad shoulders. The bangs framing his face swayed lightly as he spoke. "I'm back."
A nearly invisible tremor ran through her body. "What?" she asked sharply and lifted the kunai higher.
She felt the weight of his stare. "I came back, Sakura."
Her lips pinched and she gripped the weapon tighter.
In turn, his jaw clenched. "You don't believe me."
"Is that so surprising to you, Sasuke?" she answered.
One corner of his mouth twisted up in the parody of a smile. "No," he said lowly while his eyes still burned holes through her soul. "But I had hoped."
She almost snorted. Hope was not a word in Sasuke's vocabulary. She lowered her weapon an inch or so. "I'm going to call the ANBU. If you really are serious about coming back, this is your chance to prove it."
He watched her while she summoned a slug that immediately hurried away once it had set eyes on him. "I am serious, Sakura."
Her eyes were cold. "The fact that you sneaked into the village doesn't really work in your favor."
"I wanted you and Naruto to be the first ones to know," he answered steadily.
There were multiple poofing sounds, then he was surrounded by Konoha ANBU. He calmly let them set chakra suppressing cuffs onto his wrists, never taking his gaze off her. Sakura stared back but his unmoving face revealed nothing. And then he was gone.
Her kunai fell to the floor and she sank to her knees, trembling.
-
She didn't quite realize that Naruto entered her hospital office but then his warm hand touched her shoulder and she swung around to him. He looked at her with earnest blue eyes.
"Have you seen him?" she asked.
"Yeah," he answered. "He's really back."
Then she was on her feet, clinging to his shoulders as he buried his head in her neck. Both of them were sobbing, holding each other up and Sakura inhaled the scent of his skin, soothing and familiar.
"I hate him," she whispered chokedly.
His arms crushed her against his torso. "No, you don't. We both don't."
His hot breath gosted over her neck, giving her goosebumps. "I love him".
He trembled against her body. "I know."
She buried her hands in his hair and pressed her forehead against his collarbone.
-
She had lost count of the days it took till the Council allowed Sasuke to move back into his old house that no one had dared to touch. It was dark and dusty, so they cleaned it from top to bottom until the furniture was gleaming, but it remained dark.
He wasn't allowed to go out often, so she had taken to visiting him at home. When he was allowed to go, the three of them usually wandered through the city (because Sasuke was not allowed to fight yet), trying to patch up their battered relationship as good as possible.
It wasn't the same. All of them had changed. Sasuke was even more closed up than before, barely speaking and never betraying any emotion. Naruto still liked to talk, but he was calmer, more serious, more subdued. Sakura had somehow evolved into the center of their group, balancing the discomfort between the two males.
It was weeks later, when she was at Sasuke's home, just preparing to go after they had silently eaten dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, and he was sitting in the dark living room. He never bothered to turn on the light when he was alone and she didn't think it was healthy, really, but there was still something in her that stubbornly refused to go back to being twelve and fully open her heart to him again. So she let him sit in the dark every time she left and he seemed to belong.
But this time, as she was taking a step towards the front door, he called her name and it cut through the darkness like a knife's blade, for only a second. Sasuke didn't face her even when she stood in the doorway and his head was in his hands. She couldn't tell if he was trembling as much as his voice did or if his shoulders were stiff because the room was simply too gloomy.
His breathing was harsh. "Don't leave."
Sakura shifted her weight. "I won't be staying over night, Sasuke."
"No," he bit out and lifted his head to face her and his eyes were gleaming dimly in the light that barely shone in from the hallway. "Don't leave me."
She looked at him, wondering if he was going crazy or if she was. It would be no wonder with either of them. She had started to mistrust her own mind after she had stopped wanting to kill him and started to feel a sick kind of attachment to him, taking masochistic pleasure in the way she disintegrated along with him.
"I can't stand this anymore," he whispered harshly and tore at his hair. Then, suddenly, he was in front of her, clinging to her, almost breaking her ribs with the grip of his arms. "I'm losing my mind, Sakura, and you are the only one who can stop it."
Her own mind almost broke when he finally touched her the way she had wanted him to back then. He was all around her, pressing her body to his, his breath ghosting hotly over her skin, his fingers tangling in her hair. She was slowly going under, losing her sense of reality and hated herself that he had done this to her so easily, so selfishly.
She lifted her hand and almost reluctantly touched his pale cheek with trembling fingers. It was then his legs gave away and he fell to his knees, burying his head into her torso and shaking violently. And it was then Sakura discovered how much power she held over him and how heavy the responsibility weighed on her shoulders.
-
Of course, Naruto knew the second she saw him the next time. His eyes darkened as he looked at her and his fingers twitched, but he didn't say anything. She was silent as well, only looked at him, hoping, knowing he would see something in her eyes that would explain to him. They both knew that Sasuke was aware of the silent communication going on between them but he kept his head turned away and ignored them, and neither Sakura nor Naruto mentioned anything about it.
Later that night, when they had brought Sasuke back to his house and had stored away the freshly bought groceries in Naruto's apartment, he finally cracked.
"You're with him."
She looked at him, because looking away would have been unfair to him. "If that's what you want to call it."
His fist crashed into the wall. "Dammit, Sakura!" His eyes were wild when he turned around to face her, breathing harshly.
She took a breath. "Yes, I am," she said lowly.
He took three large steps until he was right in front of her and she could feel his hot breath on her face, but he didn't touch her. "Don't say that again," he growled.
She looked into his eyes steadily. "I hate him," she whispered.
There was a rumble in his throat. "No, you don't."
She closed her eyes. "No. I love him."
Suddenly, she was smashed against the wall, Naruto's body pressed against hers, his mouth on her ear. "No. I won't let you." His hands trapped her wrists next to her head. "I won't let you!"
When he kissed her feverishly, she responded with equal heat and arched her body against his. He let go of her hands to touch her and her hands roamed over his skin, tangled in his hair, fisted in his clothes. He wrenched his mouth away from hers and pressed his forehead against hers. "You don't love him."
She placed little, hasty kisses all over his face, clinging to him tightly. "No," she murmured, "no. I love you, I love you."
"Say it," he rasped.
She chanted it over and over again.
-
The next morning, he woke up and found her sitting on the edge of his bed, her clothes in her lap, looking at him. She bent down and kissed him, then sat upright again.
"You're going," he said and it wasn't a question.
"I can't leave him," she said.
"I know," he replied, but tangled his hands in her hair all the same when she bent down to kiss him again. Her clothes crumpled between them but neither of them cared.
When she arrived at Sasuke's house in her disarrayed clothing, he opened the door for her. He took one short glance at how she was dressed, then he turned his head and pushed the door open further to let her in.
He followed her to the kitchen and she could still smell Naruto on her skin as she turned around to face him. His gaze was fixed on her face. He leaned against the doorframe and put his hands in his pockets but the set of his shoulders was stiff. "Sakura."
She cocked her head.
Sasuke's dark eyes trapped her with their gaze and a pulse of electricity went through her body. "Move in with me."
"Sasuke…" Her voice wavered a little with uncertainty.
He took one step towards her. "I need you."
And so she did.
-
Naruto helped them carry the boxes with Sakura's belongings. He was the only one who helped with the move. Sakura couldn't have standed the worried glances Ino or Shikamaru would have given her. It was nothing someone not a part of Team Seven could have ever understood.
She felt Naruto's eyes on her when they walked up the road together, could feel Sasuke's hand heavy around her own. Naruto's hand brushed her back as she entered the house after Sasuke. When he handed her a book or a picture frame, they stared at each other longer than decent and the longing in his eyes almost broke her because she knew that he was breaking for her.
At one point, Sasuke left them alone in the living room to add Sakura's china to his own in the kitchen. They were crouching on the floor, next to one of the bookshelves, and in the next second he had sat back and she was kneeling between his legs, her hands in his hair as they kissed feverishly.
"Promise me," he rasped, panting.
"What?" she replied just as breathlessly, aiming for the corner of his mouth.
His hands pressed her close to his chest, she had to arch her back. "Promise me you won't break."
"I won't," she promised but it was barely audible because his mouth was on hers again, desperately. "I won't."
When Sasuke came back in, the books were arranged neatly in the bookshelf.
-
Sasuke clung to her at night, whenever he had a nightmare. He was trembling and shaking while she brushed his bangs away from his forehead and wrapped her arms around the shoulders damp with fear.
When the attacks were over, he was almost achingly sweet. He made love to her body and she let him, because that was the only sanctuary she could offer him. He was silent while loving her, his fingers cool as they ghosted over her skin and his breath left goosebumps all over her torso.
He held her as if she were fragile, delicate but she knew it was him who could break any second. She could feel it in the stiffness of his shoulders, in the tremble of his arms and the movement of his hips. He was always strained, somehow, as if waiting for a crack to appear, waiting for the final burst of his grip.
So she held him just as gingerly, her mouth and nose pressed into his shoulder as she stared at the ceiling with her eyes wide open.
-
After the first time he had made love to her, she shifted out of the bed as soon as he had fallen asleep again. He probably woke up, his senses too honed to be left unalarmed by the change of presence, but he didn't say a word and didn't open his eyes, so she silently left the bedroom and the house to jump over rooftops, clad in the clothes from the day before.
Naruto opened after the second knock, took one glance at her and hurled her against the wall, her wrists bound by his fingers, his eyes flickering red. "Fuck it, Sakura, why?"
"You know why," she whispered back.
With a growl, he crushed his lips to hers. His fingers left bruises on her wrists and on her hips, his teeth nipped at her lips till they were sore. He never held her like a delicate object, but seemed to want to meld into her, draw her so close that they would become one, to feel every inch of her skin against his.
He held her like a desperate man, like someone drowning, and she clung back, craving for something impossible. He gave himself wholly because he never held back and she gave him all of her soul because that was all she could offer.
When she returned to Sasuke's house in the morning, he was eating his breakfast and didn't say a word as she sat across from him with her own plate.
-
Naruto succeeded Tsunade in her office. Sakura and Sasuke were at the inauguration ceremony, standing side by side but Sakura never once took her eyes off Naruto. She was the last to congratulate him because she waited for most of the crowd to disperse before she hugged him fiercely and kissed him once.
Later that night, she and Sasuke were finishing dinner. Sakura placed her plate in the sink and walked past him on her way to the living room. She had reached the door, when he calmly spoke up.
"Sakura."
She paused, one hand on the doorframe.
"Marry me."
For a long second, she only stared unseeingly at the dark wood of the hallway floor, feeling his gaze on her and the responsibility weighing down her shoulders. For a second, she could feel the cracks appearing, could feel something inside of her trembling under the strain and breathing became hard. But she had promised not to break, so she wouldn't.
She lifted her head, but didn't turn. "No, Sasuke."
Sakura made to continue her path, but his voice stopped her again.
"I need you."
Closing her eyes, she drew a shuddering breath. "Maybe," she replied slowly. "But I can't."
She heard him move, unsettled. "Don't leave me, Sakura."
This time, she looked back, taking in his fixed stare and clenched fists and felt like crumbling. "You're our teammate. We won't leave you."
He was silent as she left the room. She slid to the floor in the dark living room and let her hair hide her face.
-
A week later, Kakashi put a new seal on Sasuke's old curse mark. Sasuke had requested it, hoped, it would rid him of the nightmares. Sakura looked on silently as he writhed on the floor, sweat drops sliding over his face, his back arching. They both knew it wouldn't help.
Three days after that, Shikamaru helped carrying the last boxes of her belogings out of Sasuke's house. He had started talking to Anko and spent hours sitting in a room with a dark spot on the floor, right in the middle of it. The nightmares hadn't stopped, he still clung to her at night, trembling, crying, cold and sweating. When he tried to make his weakness up to her afterwards, she blindly stumbled out of the bed and fled to the kitchen, huddled over the table in the darkness and cried for the first time in years.
He had remained silent as she started packing her things in the morning, had remained so even as Naruto arrived and held her tighly as she trembled. When Naruto stood with him in the hallway as Sakura packed up in the bedroom, the blonde looked at him and his calm voice was betrayed by his clenched fists. "She loves you. She won't ever leave you."
Sasuke nodded and closed his eyes. He only opened them again after they had left his house and then he moved to slide the door shut behind them.
A/N: I changed the ending from the way it was when I originally posted this. This whole piece is left intentionally vague and it's been written more out of a curiosity to probe the bonds between the members of Team Seven than any attempt to properly define them.
The whole idea was originally intended to be written out of Karin's point of view after she had followed Sasuke when he returned to Konoha, and that story exists halfway done on my hard drive. It's a oneshot based very much on observation, but it's also about the way Team Seven is broken and hurting, how they can't let go of the past and each other and how they all close their eyes to it even though it pains them even more. It's their unique psychology, their unique dynamics. If anyone is interested in how this originally looked like (with Karin as focal point) before it changed into this, tell me and I'll post it on my lj (which open for public eyes).