I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.
Endless
"Ow."
"Hold still."
"You're pressing down too – Ow!"
"Hold still, I said!"
"It's sort of hard when your knee is… err…"
They both looked down. The cramped space in the hollow tree had placed the two of them in very awkward positions. He lay on his back, his long legs crooked in clumsy attempts to give her enough space, while she leaned over him, frowning at the deep lacerations gouged into his chest. As she continually shuffled to find a better angle of leverage, her knee had inched further up. Specifically, closer to his crotch.
She glanced up, meeting his blue, serene gaze. He was grinning, as if he had not bled all over her just half an hour earlier. She couldn't bear it. The crimson stains seemed to seep through her clothes and soak her bones. She didn't think they would ever come off. She hated that colour. It made her remember all the times she had tried to pump it back into his damaged body, grinding her teeth against tears that threatened to make her believe that this would be the last time.
Now, those same thoughts made her bite her lip and turn away, because she could no longer look in his eyes without seeing her own horrified ones staring back at her.
She felt him sit up. "Sakura-chan?"
"What?"
"I'm alright, you know." His breath, warm against her cheek. His voice, soft, gentle. "Kyuubi-"
She gently extracted herself from the tangle of his limbs, shaking her head. "Don't say it, Naruto. Please."
"Sakura? I… oh, damn. Ow…" He winced and raised a hand to his chest. From the fringes of her vision, she could see that his fingers were tipped with red. She was there before he could pull them away.
"I told you not to move! Oh no… you tore it open again. You idiot."
He wouldn't lie back down, and she could feel his gaze on her as she spread her glowing fingers across his wounds. But his hand closed around her wrist as soon as she had clotted the bleeding. He just shook his head when she glared at him.
"You should save your chakra, Sakura-chan. You got hit pretty hard too, didn't you? I'm feeling heaps better already. Really!" he added sincerely when she tried to pull out of his grip.
She looked into his eyes, searching. How could he not see that the wounds on his body hurt her more than her own? How could she make him understand? Even now, she wondered what was holding him together, wondered if, Kami forbid, it was her. Sometimes, watching those eyes bleed into the same shade of crimson she so hated as they flickered over her blood-stained garments and bruised limbs, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
Right now, those eyes were clear and bright and trained inquisitively on her face, and she resisted the urge to throw her arms around him just to make sure he was still there, that she had done it again.
"Naruto," she said.
"Yeah?" He was poking through a large tear in his trousers, at a purpling bruise flowering on his thigh. Almost subconsciously, Sakura batted his hand away and laid her own against the discoloured skin, sending more of her chakra into him.
"Would it really kill you to be more careful with your body?" she wanted to know.
He scratched his head sheepishly. "Sorry. I know I can really get caught up. It's not that bad though! Kyuubi won't let me die that-" His voice died into a surprised hiss of pain. Sakura had clenched her fingers into a fist in the midst of healing. "S-Sakura-chan, can you-"
"Don't do that."
"… Huh?"
"Just don't."
He watched her as she wordlessly concentrated on another splinter she'd found in his leg. She wouldn't look at him. "Sorry, Sakura," he said quietly. "I swear this is the last time."
She almost snapped and screamed at him to take those words back. It took self-control and far too much practice to keep it in. Did he really not know himself well enough to realise that he would never be able to keep his emotions from the battlefield? Did he not understand that 'the last time' would only mean that she hadn't been able to save him?
She found her answer when he reached over to grab her wrist again, turning her to look at him: he didn't.
But then he looked her in the eye and smiled and said, "I'm serious, Sakura-chan. It won't happen again. It's the last time. Promise." And she couldn't help but believe him, just because he was Naruto. She told herself it was the last time she would believe him.
Thunder rumbled above the clouds. The sound of rain hissing against leaves and rippling the soil began to fill the silence between them. As they sat together in a hollow tree in enemy territory, their broken bodies flush against each other's, they knew they were both lying. There would never be a last time.