_a/n: screaming because sasusaku is canon! yaayyayay. this is my lame attempt to write something dedicated to the last chapters. it's really short, sorry
she's morphine, queen of my vaccine
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It ends with a bang.
Their arms are blown off and he and Naruto are nothing but a bloodied mess of crimson pools and battered limbs. He might laugh. He would, if only the spaces between his ribs wouldn't collide at every dip his stomach makes.
And then there's Sakura, all pink hues and glowing and the light in the midst of it all, even when there are purple blue bruises along her used-to-be porcelain skin, anxiety painting and co-existing beside her year-long stress. Despite everything, she still cares enough to waste her chakra on him. Her knees scratch when she falls to the ground and gets to work and he watches her, feeling the blood drying at his lip while beginning to lose all feeling in his shoulder.
He breathes her name and it tastes bitter, comes out haggard, almost numb. She tells him to shut up and it makes him want to smirk at the gut that's evident in the way she snaps. Reminds him of a clone he had watched her pummel into the concrete with elevated strength. She'd hate him even more if he had the energy to curve his lips, though. He knew this.
So Sasuke doesn't listen. If he doesn't make it out, he should at least have the decency to apologize to someone he'd put through hell when she'd offered him heaven. If he does make it out, he'll be sure to spar with her one day. She'd be an entertaining match.
"I'm sorry for everything."
(she deserves much more, much better than he)
And she cries whilst words that make him think of team seven, having friends, having her.
He falls asleep seconds later.
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He awakes in a room of white with a monitor beeping to his left and a window with blinds only slightly open, exposing a brim of sunlight onto the floors to his right. The place itself is an entire miasma of nostalgia. It's blanch walls are bare and stripped, just as he under thin sheets and hospital cloth. The smell of parchment and spilt orange juice mesh with the scent of medicinal herbs. When he sits up, there is no blonde lingering at the foot of the bed and there is no girl with constant sobs throwing her arms around his neck. A part he'd buried years before had slightly hoped they'd been there.
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He tells her he needs to leave, and he smiles when she shyly requests to come along. Silly girl, he thinks.
"This is my road to redemption. You have nothing to do with my sins."
He watches as her face falls, her lip quivering and her eyes descending past his pupils in shame. He's broken her heart too many times. Her mossy orbs wander to her feet before noticing the way he raises his hand from his side and she thinks (for the slightest second) that he may tilt her chin up.
Instead, he does the one gesture of his childhood, the single symbol of affection that he knows, tapping his two fingers against her forehead.
"I'll see you soon."
He can look at her this time, this parting.
(there is no need to suffice with the shaking back of her head as she cries and he gulps)
He knows he will be back for her. And her eyes are large against his—beautiful and green and magnetic and as youthful as the night she'd first declared her love.
"Thank you."
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He thinks it's funny, what she does to him. Her persistence, her childlike naivety, her reeking hope.
"Your presence reminds me of a time of innocence," and this is the most he's said since he had arrived.
They are walking through the streets of Konoha, past crowded bakeries and overpriced fish markets. It is the brink of autumn and she's wrapped in a scarf he'd been wearing prior to his return until he'd noticed her pale, uncovered neck. She's hesitant, crafty fingers prying at the loose ends of the cotton. He'd ask her why she's reluctant, but he already knows the answer.
The Uchiha might have been gone for several months and may be forgiven by most if not all, but the image of his infamous glare and determined demeanor attempting (and once a false, yet successful) murder plagues her mind and torments her in the silent minutes before she sleeps. Despite the front she holds stubbornly and embarrassingly, she is frightened.
Sakura laughs, though. He notices the way her smile fails to reach her eyes. "So I make you feel thirteen again, huh?"
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She is clad in nothing but the blue sheets of his mattress, resting bare and pale and open for him to devour her flesh in his mouth in bruises she'll receive with delight pouring through her lips. Goosebumps coat the areas around her defined collarbones and run along the outside of her arms. Sakura's kitten eyes emphasize the accentuating pinkness of her hair, sprawled in waves around his pillow.
Her lips purse when he allows his fingers to graze over the smoothness of her skin, beginning at the top of her navel and moving slowly upward. The power his hands hold at her skin without the use of any of his fluctuating chakra sends a tingle up her spine and he feels the way she shivers at his touch—especially in the area that had been so sensitive to her since he had killed her in a technique he shouldn't have used.
He doesn't want to hurt her.
You won't, she tells him, running her much smaller hands (that were capable of bruising, killing, marking, healing, feeling) along his chest. Her face heats up and his heart quickens. The feeling is foreign, nice.
If he'll be okay, so will they.
And it starts with a kiss.
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fin.