Castles In The Air.
Such fleeting invocations. The dam will always break.
. . . . .
02: Te Deum
Summary: Sakura is starryeyed and looking ugly - no, not ugly. Despite how the dressings and the splints and the barrier shielding her wounds consumes her. She's too valiant for that, a bit of a hero around here. Sasuke can't not visit her.
Theme: Chance meetings
Prompt: Shatter
Sakura is starryeyed and looking ugly.
Not 'ugly', not exactly - the word is too callous and cruel for her, too harsh. No one who returns from the battlefield is ever deemed ugly, even if they're ripped apart, riddled with scars, cast up, bandaged up, maybe missing limbs. They're too appraised, too valiant to ever embrace something so superficial.
Her stomach heals tentatively. No infection to speak of (at least not now; but like her pain, the process is tumultuous). Bed rest, absolutely. Doctor's orders. She'll be released in a matter of weeks.
For now, it's being held captive from reality, an almost welcomed release from the constant sense of a looming threat, the desperate wracking of the mind for any tactic, any plan, what's crucial for survival. In a hospital, survival is taken care of for you. For now, it's that crucial bed rest with pink gelatin and crackers with soup, juice with a straw on a breakfast tray; bad television re-runs as quiet background noise in the soft, hazy static that seems to occupy her room, 177. (Fitting.)
Sasuke hears of her by accident, something like an accident - he's getting his wounds checked, bracing dull pain as the nurse repairs sutures that burst. Right there in his left leg - and he'll always remember that death is a temptress when he looks at it later. He overhears the other nurses talking about her.
She's saved lives. A wonderful hero. A bit of a hero around here.
Sakura fills the role perfectly. It slips on with ease. Nothing forced, nothing fake. Genuine altruism.
Sasuke listens. Against better judgement he listens. Anything horrific is possible here.
But nothing horrific comes. Only that Sakura's saved lives - she saved them before she was 'taken out of battle'. It's said carefully, because phrases like 'almost killed' and 'nearly blown to bits' simply aren't appropriate. But these nurses, they know the whole story. They do it out of courtesy.
Room 177, right, Haruno is in room 177, doing pretty well with recovery too...
Their voices drift, phantasmic and nearly non-existent, drifting ghost-like down the long, antiseptic corridors of the hospital as they walk out the door, away from his cot and all the cots lined up here. With everybody else waiting for repairs.
Sasuke gets up. He's given the OK from his buoyant nurse, she's done her handiwork and seems too appeasing, too youngto refuse any request so very kind and sweet as: I want to go visit Haruno Sakura.
(Oh, it's simply lovely of you!)
Sasuke almost scoffs at her approval. He's using crutches now - his mind remembers just how it all works, the mechanics of it, the sore feeling underneath the arms wearily familiar. Tap, tap, tap down the halls, all vacant. He's on her floor.
Past two more nurses. They smile at him, almost hesitantly - ignoring the bandages on his cheek (flying shrapnel) and the cuts on his exposed arms (from the initial onslaught) as he walks on. Limps on. Tap, tap tap.
Finally: 177.
Would he have gone to visit her, if he hadn't heard her being mentioned? Talked about like some grandiose hero. The most Heroic Medic of them all. (She'll laugh when she hears it herself.) It's too tempting notto see her.
Sasuke knocks twice, walks in. And there's Sakura, lying there. Suddenly all wide-eyed with anticipation despite how, fuck - she's really beat up this time, totally consumed by all the brutality of too many dressings and protective splints and her abdomen, hidden from view, he can only picture it. Sasuke doesn't want to picture it, beneath the clean white barrier, the covering.
She's looking starryeyed, and it's his fault. But she's never ugly.
Sasuke sets down his crutches beside her bed. He sits down carefully on it, testing the waters; she doesn't mind it.
It's all unnaturally warm. She fumbles with the paperback in her lap. He sets it aside for her.
It's been seventy-two hours since they've come back, and yet they're still lost in the stagnant, viscous state that a gruesome battle tends to bring. They aren't abnormal (if only they knew it). Sasuke feels strangely abnormal.
At least things aren't as abnormal when he's in the room with her. It doesn't really feel much like a hospital, with the personal items - her sweater and a childish stuffed thing on the pillow, and of course, the book - and the flowers. Too many of them.
Sakura was in the ICU for twenty-four hours.
Sasuke doesn't know about this, because he was unconscious for over half of a day.
They can't look at each other for a moment. Then Sakura touches Sasuke's hand, and he allows her to. He's always been wary with close contact, noticeably uncertain - as if too much of it would make the abyss within him grow wider. An overwhelming desire to have more and more if it, after such a long absence from the world.
Sasuke clears his throat. Through half-mast eyes he traces her finger tips. Somehow, her hands are almost all right. It's ironic.
There's an unsaid thank you. Thank you, more than anything. It's almost too much for Sasuke, this enormous weight of gratitude pressed upon him, a magnificent force all from her. It always seems to be. It feels incredibly wrong.
Sakura deservesto be saved, from everything around her that haunts them. It's something Sasuke always knew, but kept tucked away for an exceedingly long amount of time.
"It's going to leave a beautiful scar." Her voice cuts through the silence, welcomingly. Sasuke slowly lifts his head, his gaze. Her eyes, clear as ever. Not even dulled by opiates.
"The cut, on my stomach. Don't you think?"
He thinks. Then kisses her. So swiftly, but Sasuke is absolutely present - even aware not to lean forward too much, not daring to press any part of her body. Heel of his palm pressed into the bed firmly.
Sakura responds. It is a dampened and quiet exchange, one of utter relief, of total mitigation. Even after all these years - it's been eight years already. It's so utterly foolish to wait too long, before things are forced into motion, and there's no avoiding it.
Sakura can almost feel it - the abatement of something that's always been around, like a hideous ghost, a dark spirit. A very slow process. They make do with what they can. They always have.
It's been a while since Sasuke felt entirely vulnerable in a way that's too clear. He breathes out his reply in one great big exhalation, almost rushing the words to escape him: "Yeah. It will."
Sakura parts her lips through slow, warm crying, honey-sweet tears on rough cheeks. Staring in puerile hope - and her eyes have never revealed such truths before.
A precious undulation, immersing him.
.:: Ω ::.