The sadness was utterly pervasive. An earthquake of emotion slackening her limbs and adding lead weights to her eyelids. Her throat burned with the need to sob, scream, cry out- anything just to relieve the pressure pounding behind her eyes. Instead the strange freezing fire soaked into her skin and burned up all her strength.
Her shoulders and back ached with the sheer effort of forcing up her head from the dull miasma clinging to her face and body. The bog of inertia crawled between her legs and under her arms –there was nothing, nothing that was separate anymore. The wretched weight of every object in the room and the breath of every person for miles around clumped together forming a crushing force. Their oppressive mass oozed down, an ugly gravity field crushing a passing comet to a bitter core of sharkskin and coal.
Sasuke lay beside her, hot body warming her burning-cold legs as he curled around dragon-like. He watched as she took shuddering breaths and clutched at her throat. He watched as she pulled on her short pink hear until it began to tear at the roots. He watched as she dug her nails into the thin skin under her eyes and over her cheeks. Waited until the shuddering half-sobs had receded- until coiling his body just a little tighter around her and gently tugging her down until she was trapped between his body and the back of the oil-grey couch.
Sasuke wrapped one arm around her shoulder and let his warmth and the tender heaviness of his muscled arm seep through to her. Slowly he joined Sakura in her cold and lonely space He let the gentle warmth begin to melt apart the mass bearing down on the small body beside him until minutes-maybe hours later- Sakura sighed and buried her face into the base of his neck. She inhaled his love, his tenderness and his compassion.
And in that moment, she let herself love him; even as she was still pained by the aching burden of responsibility buried like lead at the base of her spine.