Sasuke and his posthumous effects on the world
The friends you made when you were twelve can't hold you up forever. But maybe the ones you made when you were fifteen can.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
A/N: Yes, the timeline for this is screwed up. I've fallen out of the Naruto fandom lately and this was only written for a friend's challenge (the title) and I'm not up to date with recent events in the manga.
When Sasuke dies, Sakura and Naruto start to drift apart. It only makes sense really-the crux of their bond had been to find him, to bring back what was lost from them. But when she passes by Naruto in the street and gives him an indifferent wave, she wishes things had turned out differently.
What had formed their friendship was what tore it apart-each reminded the other of Sasuke, of memories that peeled away their carefully constructed public shells.
In the first days afterward, Ino had let Sakura stay at her house. She had brought her tissues and glasses of water when Sakura woke crying in the night, sobbing about ravens and blood until her voice was hoarse. But days turn into weeks into nearly six months and Ino turns her out at last.
"I'm sorry Sakura," she says and her voice is thick with grief. Ino never wanted to see her like this, doesn't want to turn her away at all. But there is only so much of the burden she can take before she gives out too and she closes the door before Sakura can answer, can make her give in.
Why did things have to end like this? Ino wonders that night, cooking dinner. She answers her own question as she pours three glasses of sake. Because we are shinobi, that's why. We can't go under, so we simply learn how not to feel. She reaches for the rice, trying to remember if Shikamaru prefers it steamed or fried. Sakura really never learned that.
Tenten is sympathetic-she understands the weight of loving a genius, someone who will always stand above you-but Neji is alive. She never had to watch him die with one crackling, lightning cased hand in his brother's stomach, laughing as he killed his last family member. The sight of them, simply standing together drives Sakura away, nearly drives her insane.
A year goes by. Sakura doesn't remember much of them-birthdays gone, people dead. Somewhere along the way she turns twenty-two and moves back in with her parents. She is so tired of waking in the night with no one there, with no one to cry too.
She bumps into Naruto in the street more often now, and he looks as bad as she imagines herself to be-eyes with dark circles, bloodshot and pale. Some days Hinata is with him and he looks better than, hair brushed and wearing something besides a plain t-shirt and jeans. Mostly though he wanders around, slouched with his hands stuck in his pockets. She walks with him sometimes and she wonders what the townspeople think of them, the last members of a disgraced team.
When even her parents turn her out, Sakura realizes something has got to change. But that sound like it would hurt too much-too many memories and old wounds, so she simply shows up on Naruto's doorstep and rings the bell. When he answers she asks if she can stay with him, just until she gets back on her feet. (Like she's been doing for the past year.)
"Urgh." he says and she takes that as a yes.
Naruto has never been the height of cleanliness, even back (Sakura swallows, wipes at her shameful burning eyes) when things were normal. It seems that in between their lives falling apart he lost track of when to do the laundry, and whether the dishes needed to be cleaned. She really can't say she blames him, but that first night, brushing his dirty pants and shirts off the couch, it doesn't seem like an excuse.
Sakura and Naruto take to eating in silence, their spoons clacking against the bottoms of empty bowls. She teaches him to start doing the dishes again, and in return he keeps his dirty underwear out of her sight.
Sakura finds an old photograph pasted to the wall and stares at it a moment, tracing the border with her finger. This is us, She realizes. Back when we were Team 7. She rests her hand on Sasuke's face and feels a pang of pity for her younger self. I loved him so much then, I love him-
Ravens and blood, and Sasuke laughing as his brother died; Itachi's final gift coming in the form of a kunai in the throat. The shock, his last look of fear. That red-headed girl shrieking, stumbling backwards, and Naruto catching Sasuke as he slid backwards. He had thrown her a desperate glance (bring him back Sakura, please, for all of us) and Sasuke's head hanging limp, eyes glazing, Sharingan fading.
No. Sakura thinks, shaking her head clear of everything she's tried to forget for the last two years. That wasn't the Sasuke-kun we knew anymore. She looks away, walks on down the hall. It's better to forget him when he was like that.