disclaimer: i wish.
dedication: to les, for being my partner in crime late at night
notes: sleep? who needs sleep? psh, your mom needs sleep.
notes2: "That's how I define our friendship. You're scarily logical, and I'm the one who commits crimes!" — saraa to eleni.

title: live wire
summary: Dancing in between the lethal electric, quick-whipping live wires; it was a talent she was known for, a talent she was usually on the run for. — Sasuke/Sakura; o6/5o.

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A cigarette dangled from Sakura's lips, the very tip burning charcoal red. It was the only flicker of light in the dingy hotel room; dark curtains blocked out most of the fake-light from the day outside.

"Your parents can't stand me," she told the man sitting in a chair across the room, a spiteful smile making its way into her words. She was the embodiment of everything the Uchiha family hated about themselves—of course they hated her.

And she liked them even less then they liked her. That was saying something.

"Hn," he grumbled.

"I would tell you to go back… but in good conscience, I can't. Sorry."

"Hn."

Sakura stood, and stretched, slashed black tank stretching tight across her torso, exposing skin that rarely saw true sunlight. Unnatural pink hair was swiftly put up into a knot at the top of her head, and Sakura's green eyes were sharp.

"I've got Topside patrol in twenty. You coming?" she asked.

"No," he muttered.

Sakura shrugged, and headed towards the door, combat boots thudding dully against the cross-foam of the floor.

"Sakura."

"Hm?" she asked.

"Take… something with you. It's not safe up there."

Sakura rolled her eyes, and held up her hand. The pale blue scalpels that were melded into her skin, just below her nails, glinted in the dim light. "Don't start, Sasuke-kun. I grew up out there, I'll be perfectly fine. I know the areas to avoid, and it's not like I'm unarmed."

She turned back towards the door. She heard him grumble and complain to himself for another ten seconds, and then he had shot up off the couch, and was standing next to her. His black hair cloaked most of his facial expressions, and right at the moment, he was scowling like nothing else, sparks of red fire in his eyes; and Sakura knew him too well.

She smiled.

"I knew you couldn't resist."

—

Running the cables was one of the easiest things Sakura had ever done.

Dancing in between the lethal electric, quick-whipping live wires; it was a talent she was known for, a talent she was usually on the run for. It made getting topside patrol so much more fun.

Sakura scaled up the elevator shaft like she was born doing it. Her fingers caught in the gridded walls, binary information flowing through the walls at a rate that few could process—Sakura, herself, didn't have the software installed.

Sasuke was behind her, a few feet below. She looked down at him, and called, mischief incarnate "C'mon, Sasuke-kun! Five minutes! You're being slow!"

Sasuke was probably rolling his eyes, and figuring out a way to get out ahead of her. Sakura knew he hated when she went topside without him.

The cables whizzed and hissed, violence and energy personified as the two scrambled up the scaffolding. The two slid past the videotape-cameras, watching the cable-cars passively.

No one thought anyone was stupid enough to run the cables, anyways.

So the Feds didn't watch the walls.

(No one thought anyone was stupid enough to go Topside, either; but then, Sakura had never been the most conventionally intelligent person in the world.)

Sakura continued to climb. She didn't look down, again; she knew that if she did, she would only think about how far it was the to the bottom of the cable-shaft. It was not a pleasant thought.

Her gloved fingers skimmed the edges of the consciousness of the structure of the world, coming away leaden with the remnants of ice-blue glo-dust and smoke. She wrinkled her nose delicately, and hooked herself up onto a sheet-metal platform, Sasuke behind her.

"Two minutes," she told him.

"I know, girl."

Sakura rolled her eyes. Her hands closed around the grimy metal rungs of the ladder that led up to the hatch that went Topside, and she clambered all the way up. She pushed the hatch open, and skidded out into the real-bright sunlight.

Her eyes, so used to the dank darkness of Underland, were unaccustomed to the light, and Sakura shied away, for a moment or two. Then she slipped the dark-goggles that she kept in her equipment pack over her eyes, and felt a little better.

Sasuke came up behind her, and surveyed Topside, distaste clear on his face.

It was the rubble of a million wars, the destruction of every possible facet of humanity.

And Sakura looked completely at home, there.

She picked her way across a picked-clean pile of trash, and stood atop the scattered bits and pieces of a once-machine. She cocked her hip, and gave him a very bored look. "You coming?"

Sasuke said nothing, and shook his head.

Sakura smiled. "Sure, you aren't. And my hair's not pink. C'mon."

Sasuke sighed, and followed her small form over the wreckage.

—

Six hours later, neither of them would be in the condition to deal with anyone else, mentally. There were two children—two children without parents, both with terrified eyes, and hallowed cheeks, rags and bones.

Sakura bit through her lip trying to get them to trust her enough to get them back to the safety of Underland.

Six hours.

Topside tended to do that to people.

—

It was easy to get lost in light and music and pounding beats, Sakura knew.

Easy.

Escapist.

Extremist.

Swing, swing.

Arms in the air, shimmer-ink up and down her arms, her throat, finger smeared across her face, her lips, painted like freedom. Flashes of curved scalpel beneath skin, sparkle, sparkle in coloured light. So many bodies pressed in around her, (closer, closer, please), hands on her hips, rolling and hissing, and it was dancing with cables all over again. Different environment, but the energy, the energy was the same (too close, too close).

Sakura wondered if Sasuke was watching.

Probably not.

He never ended up down in the Pits, not the way Sakura did. Dance off the dirt, dance it off, dance! Dance your soul away, girl. Dance!

It was nights like this that made Sakura wonder why she ever went Topside.

It would be so easy to live in the lines that defined society.

So easy.

Swing, swing.

—

"You're so annoying."

She half-shrugged. "Yeah, yeah, I know. 'The Pits are too dangerous', blah, blah, blah. You've told me that a million times, Sasuke-kun. An' it doesn't change anything. Remember? According to you, everything is too dangerous."

She paused, and a dangerous smile carved its way onto her face.

"And you act like I can't take care of myself. I hate that, you know."

She walked two steps towards, still smiling, even as her hand blurred down his shirt, slicing it cleanly in two. Sasuke didn't even flinch, and surveyed the shredded fabric with distaste.

He frowned down at her. "You're going to be the death of me."

Sakura laughed, then, a ringtone in the dark.

"I know."

—

"What are you doing?"

"Why so monotone, Sasuke-kun? Also, I'm obviously doing nothing that will endear me to you." Shuffle, shuffle.

"…Hn."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I need to find Karin, seen her recently?"

"Not since–"

"You think I don't know that? It's been three weeks."

"You – are you – you idiot." Strain in his voice.

A sigh. "You're acting like I'm not coming back, again. I always come back. Always."

"…"

"I'm here now, right?"

"Hn."

"Don't give me that shit-eating look of yours. That only works on Naruto, stupid. I'm not Naruto."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Your parents still can't stand me. They just – I dunno, don't like me. It's not going to work. It's probably better if, you know–"

"Don't say that, girl."

"…Lemme go, Sasuke-kun. She's practically my sister. I need to find her. Come if you want, but don't try to stop me."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Have I ever forced you to do anything, Sasuke? Ever? We both know that I couldn't. Not even if I tried."

"…"

"…"

"…Hn. Fine."

Laughter, again. "You are so predictable."

—

Arms around her waist, Sakura held the hole in her stomach. Too fast, too much, just another Topside patrol.

"Shit," she coughed, and dark wetness bloomed on her skin.

"God, you're stupid, girl," Sasuke hissed. He grabbed her arm, and forced an injection of epi-med into her. Sakura hissed as the drug-of-choice swirled through her veins, numbed the pain, stopped the bleeding, started the re-growth of damaged cells.

"I hate you, sometimes," she muttered to him.

And then she was up, lovely scalpel-hands tearing through the ropes that kept Topside standing.

She entirely missed his soft "I know you do."

—

Back in the dingy hotel room, Sakura washed Topside grit and blood out of her hair in the kitchen sink, tap running a water substitute over her skull.

Sasuke was standing at the window, facing away, when she walked out of the kitchen, towel rubbing away the last of the wetness in her hair. There was a cigarette between her lips, again.

"You were right," he muttered to her, muscles taught, voice strained again.

"Hm?" Sakura murmured.

"You were right," he said again.

Sakura yawned. "What about?"

"We should stop."

"Stop what?"

"This."

The silence stretched forever. Sakura simply stared at Sasuke, contemplative. Part of her –yes, part of her, a part she didn't necessarily like, but it was still a part of her– had seen this coming.

But it still… sort of… hurt.

"I never took you for a coward, Sasuke-kun."

Sakura knew he hated being called a coward; it reminded him of his older brother. If there was one thing Uchiha Sasuke hated, it was being reminded of his older brother. She watched him stiffen, and then he whipped around to stare at her, angry fire in his eyes.

"What do you want from me, Sakura?"

Sakura's head spun. "I don't know, okay?"

He strode over, jaw still clenched, muscles still strained, and loomed over her. Stared at her. Sakura stared back; this had been so long in coming; she'd always known it would.

Sasuke's voice almost shook. "You make me… so crazy, girl."

Sakura had the audacity to smile at him, all unnatural colours, glinting metal, and sharp angles in the dim light. "I try."

"Hn," he grunted.

They stayed like that for a moment, almost pressed close together. Sakura groaned, nails on chalkboard, and fisted her lovely-scalpel hands in his shirt.

"You," she murmured, "Are stupider then me."

The cigarette dropped to the floor, the tip burning red.

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fin.