Title: Pet Names
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Drama
Word Count: 487
Summary: It's a little known fact in Konoha, but Sakura has a fondness for pet names.

A/n: This was actually inspired by a fanart dimisfit made on her tumblr (link in my profile), so this one is for her. Or-I guess-"was" since everything I upload under Dresser Drawer is reposted from my tumblr.


It's a little known fact in Konoha, but Sakura has a fondness for pet names. "Sasuke-kun" was merely the beginning, and honestly, he thinks the Uchiha got off easy. Ino's title of "pig" is now a callous endearment between rivals, Neji is sometimes affectionately referred to in anecdotes as "negi," and as her boyfriend, Kakashi is called everything under the sun.

Animals seem to be a favored topic with a strong leaning towards puns and idiomatic phrases, as in recent memory she has called him "my dearie deer," "my silver fox," and "grumpy goat." In the back of his head, he wonders what's so wrong with his given name. Scarecrows may not be as cute, but they were practical and it was what was written on his birth certificate. What was more, he hated the pet names with a passion. They were annoying, and what was more, they were embarrassing.

Still, he doesn't have the heart to tell her this. It is a petty thing to start an argument over anyway, so he keeps quiet and tries to ignore the vague tendril of resentment growing in his chest.

However, that is before he gets word that she is finally back from her mission after three days without a word. Before he takes in the sight of her eye-patch, the splinted arm, and the bandages around her head. In his mind, the medical report fires off like gunfire: fractured ulna, fractured skull, surgery to remove shrapnel from her eye. Grimly, he thinks that they can be mirrors for their respective eye-injuries—what had been the word she used before? "Twinsies?"

It doesn't matter though. Nothing does, and the realization of how petty everything is and can be crashes on him like a collapsing building as the fact that she is alive hits him. Really hits him, because he never knew how close he came to losing her until Tsunade gave him clearance and briefed him of the mission details. Explosion in a weapons factory,and he knows how those three miserable, agonizing days nearly became just a drop in the bucket. (Only nearly though.)

Grateful, he sinks to the floor by her bed and tries to keep a firm, steady grip on her hand, but it's hard when there's a god-awful sob wracking his chest and shoulders. Gently, she scoops him into her lap, threading her fingers through his hair with her good hand.

"I'm not going anywhere, you silly goose," she softly chides from her hospital bed, and the annoyance he feels at her pet names becomes smaller and smaller until it shrinks out of existence, blinking out like a dying star. It was never worth it anyway, a fact that has only been magnified by the recent circumstances, and the fight is over before it even begins.

If it means her being alive and hearing her voice, he decides, she can call him anything she wants.