A Cornucopia of Conundrums
Summary: "So what you're saying is; you had a one-night stand with some yakuza lordling and now you're preggo with his baby?" SasuSaku. AU.
"Why do people fear me?" Tomorrow sighed.
"I haven't been too kind," laughed Yesterday.
Marriage.
In the very essence of its etymology, marriage was a union of two souls – it was about becoming a team. You spent the rest of your life learning about each other, and every now and then, things blew up. But the beauty of marriage was that if you picked the right person, and you loved each other, you'd always find a way to get through it.
The kicker here was, Sakura despaired, that things had blown up a long, long time ago, and there was nothing – absolutely nothing – about Uchiha Sasuke that she wanted to know. There wasn't a right person, and there was no love – just a mad sort of retribution, a cruel sort of fate, and three people floating down a tide too strong to swim against.
How many times, she wondered, had she announced Time of Death for countless deceased? How many times, she wondered, had she fought against destiny to bring back the lost, no matter how obsolete? She couldn't tell. She couldn't remember.
But what she did know, was that for Haruno Sakura, the exact time she lost herself, the exact moment she became insentient inside her own body – her Time of Death – was 11:28 AM on the dot, smack in the bowels of Uchiha Estate, when her hand, numb and unwilling, shaky and boneless, sweaty and quivering, scrawled her name across the legal document.
She was Uchiha Sasuke's wife.
They were married.
The day started off with an imperceptive, uncomprehendingly slow pace. She didn't sleep all night. She couldn't sleep all night. She wanted to get up, gather Sarada in her arms and run far away. Her body ached with the need to gallop, her legs tingled with the premonition of flight, her heart pumped with the desire to sprint, to dash, to bolt it the hell out of there and never look back.
But she had already tried. She'd tried and been caught and humiliated. She'd been taken by the nose and charged like a doltish animal right toward Uchiha Sasuke. She bristled with the indignity.
So now, she lay still, while the rest of her body told her to book it. She lay, with her head buried in the crook of Sarada's neck – because it was the only safe place.
Her daughter was the only safe place.
She lay and she thought – of all that she was losing, all that she would become – and she wondered if taking her own life wouldn't be the right choice.
But it took a special sort of bravery to take that space, and Sakura was slowly realizing, that she might have been all kinds of courageous, but she would never be brave enough to take Sarada's Mama away from her.
When the first fingers of dawn shined through the shouji, she pulled the covers tighter around herself, relished at the painful grittiness inside her eyes, and let the twisting and turning of her stomach, be a comfort, instead of a forewarning of misfortune.
He did sleep. And it wasn't plagued with nightmares.
It was, in fact, very peaceful; soothing in a way that only dreamscape blackness could ever be.
But in the end, right before he pried his eyes open, there was a flash of green just behind his lids – it was swift and almost desultory – but even in that fleeting second, he could feel the anger radiating from that flash. Almost like Haruno Sakura's eyes.
It took him a while to figure that one out, and he only ever did that because just as he was pulling on his hakama, he caught a glance of her – a raging, furious, storm, contained in a small, human body. She walked away, led by his Mother, radiating despair
He waited – for the rage, the fury, the unbridled hatred.
And even he, himself was surprised when he felt just a humming sort of indifference – nothingness.
He just knew that from this day onward, he was going to be her husband, unwilling, reluctant and grudging. And they were going to raise Sarada, together.
Suddenly, the gaping hole of those eight years loomed down on him – of all the chances, all the opportunities that he had missed – first smile, first words, first laugh, first step – and he waited once more, for that light blanket of hate, of rancor, to settle in once more.
He waited and waited and waited. It didn't come.
What he did feel, however, was a belated urge to gouge out the bupkis from his chest, make sense of this moment, of all the moments that had led him here, to this moment, and make sense of them.
Because even he knew, that Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke could never be happy together. They – each of them – would just exist, for a child that deserved a loving, happy family.
He wanted to be a loving, happy, family.
The wedding was going to be an elaborate Shinto ceremony, Mikoto told her.
She'd donned on the kimono – detailed, ostentatious and decidedly ornate in its simplicity. She let Mikoto help her with the uchikake, held still as she tied the robe intricately, laid out the delicate trail and tied the obi. Sakura listened, quiet, numb, and paralyzed with an insensate numbness that tampered with her mind, making every movement feel like she was wading through sludge, swimming through quicksand and slowly boiling in a cauldron of imperceptivity boiling water.
Her mouth worked in a smile when Sarada settled between her arms.
"You look very beautiful, Mama," she was generously informed. Sakura took a deep breath and held her close. It didn't kill of the nausea, but it did calm her heart, somewhat. Because, this – Sarada – was the reason that she was doing this; signing away her life to a cheap, sleazy faction of low-life scoundrels.
She swallowed, then let go, braced her hands on the stool, and didn't say a word as Mikoto twined her hair with kanzashi ornaments, a gold hairpin, the wataboshi. She curbed down the sickness and through the haze of the sheer cloth of her headpiece, she let Mikoto guide her to the room where she signed away her life.
The temple was on the property of the Estate. She didn't know how many people there were going to be, but judging by the procession that followed, it was quite a few. Uchiha Sasuke walked beside her, tall and imposing and impossibly sure – like marrying her was something he was meant to be do, like her very existence didn't made his insides roil – like he hadn't once threatened to destroy her.
They were led up the stairs, and her legs felt incurably brittle – like they were going to snap under the weight of this ceremony, her decisions, her life. Pale and distant, she went through the motions. Three times, she sipped sake from his cup, and three times she fed him sake from hers. Sluggishly, she bowed down and received matrimonial bliss. The world around her was strangely muted; she could see the blur of people, gathered around the temple. She could hear their voices; distant and garbled. She could even feel their eyes on her – but the thing that never left her conscience was the truth of her situation. She was exactly where she'd run so hard to leave behind. The past was catching up with her and there was no way to avoid it.
She didn't know when the ceremony ended. She didn't know who helped her to the room. Only when she was being settled onto the hardwood floors of the small chamber, like a shiny trophy being displayed for appreciation, did she finally come to her senses.
"What are you doing?" she asked the young girl who was carefully flattening out the hem of her uchikake like a pool of white silk. On the other side, someone was spreading out a futon. On the low height table next to it, was a basket full of aphrodisiacs.
"It's your wedding night," said the girl. Her smile was happily mischievous, like Sakura's world hadn't just crumbled to dust. "Enjoy it."
Numbly, she watched as one by one, the girls left the room, and then it was only her, in a beautiful white kimono, and the demons that were unfurling like dead flowers, right in the center of her heart. Her lips were pressed together in a straight line, frozen in place by the weight of her circumstances; neither bowing up or down. Her head was stiff with the weight of all the ornaments Mikoto had so lovingly weaved into her hair, and she couldn't tell if the world was hazy because of the tears swimming in her eyes or the wataboshi gently curving over her forehead.
She wanted to burn. She wanted to die. She wanted to sling Uchiha Madara in a pit full of deadly vipers.
When Sasuke slid the door shut behind him she didn't say a word. She knew the walls were literally as thin as paper. She heard the soft rustle of his hakama as he settled down on the opposite side of the room.
For the longest time, there was silence; complete, utter, absolute silence. She couldn't even hear the cicadas outside. Just the soft, golden light, through the haze of her head piece, the itchiness of the tears drying on her face and then suddenly, a muffled ringing in her ears, as her brain finally caught up with her body.
She was in small room with Uchiha Sasuke, the father of her child, whom she was forced to marry on threat of murder of her family and friends. Uchiha Sasuke, who was the biggest coward this side of the universe, Uchiha Sasuke; who couldn't even stand up for his own principles, Uchiha Sasuke; with whom she was now expected to share her life, love, body and soul.
Uchiha Sasuke; who couldn't even give her the one thing she begged him for.
With dead hands and trembling fingers, she started undoing the tassels of her over robe, slid it off her shoulders and stood up in the pool of silk. Gently, she pried off the wataboshi and dropped it atop the robe. Slowly, with shaky legs and wobbling lips, she met his gaze. His expression was steel; but there was a glimmer in his eye, like he was trying to reach out to her soul. No, she thought desperately, suddenly hit by a wave of raging fury, no.
Angrily, she undid the rest of the layers of her dress and peeled them off with virtuoso fingers, until she was standing in front of him, almost bare, with fire in her eyes and death in her heart. She must have looked comical, she thought, with a flimsy under robe, head jangling with golden contraptions, face white with traditional make up. Eyes blazing with hatred.
Her legs were crisply fragile now, like ice statues forcefully bought to life as she lowered herself in front of him. "Take it," she whispered, voice laced with venom and abhor, as her hands snaked up his chest, around his shoulders and laced around his neck. "Take everything," she told him, slightly louder now, never breaking their gaze. And she meant everything she said. She wanted him to take it; take everything, so that when she lay there spent and limp, she could finally hate both him and herself in peace.
His brows were furrowed now, and his hands fisted in the futon. She wanted him to pound into her; make her everything she had ever loathed so she could look him in the eye and make him feel the rock bottom she—they were now falling into.
She wanted him to scream with her as they hit the very bowels of that pit.
So when he did nothing, said nothing; she pried open the front of her juban so that she was almost completely bare, firmly wrestled his hand off the futon and put his fingers inside the hem of her underwear, just as he'd done all those years ago, when he'd just been a handsome man with efficient fingers and she'd been a stupid girl who'd let a measly milestone inflate her head.
"I want you to fuck me here," she kissed him on the lips, like he'd kissed her eight years ago. "And here," she whispered, as she led his hand down the center of her core. His hand was cool against the warmth of her folds, and the hatred she felt as she dripped on his fingers was a satisfaction she hadn't felt in days. She looked him right in the eye as she guided his hand farther down her panties, held firm when he tried to jerk it away and tightened her fingers on the nape of his neck when she felt like he was going to say something. Then she leaned into his face and traced the words on the shell of his ear with her lips, "and I'll even allow you to go here."
That was it; the final straw. This time, he did succeed in jerking his hand away, shuffled away from her and backed himself into the wall. His hand was trembling at his side and she saw his adams apple bob a few times before he finally managed to swallow. His lips were tugged down into a furious scowl. He was livid.
Her heart pounded hollowly as he reached out and tugged the strings of her juban closed. She sat there on her knees as he silently stood up and crossed the room, didn't turn around when she heard the rustling, didn't even flinch when he dropped the uchikake around her shoulders and sat down in front of her again to wrap it more firmly around her. All this time she stared solemnly at the nail poking out of the wall behind the futon.
She did, however jolted in surprise when he cupped her cheeks and softly, like she was the most fragile thing in the world kissed the top of her head. His lips lingered there for one, two, three heartbeats and then he moved away and she was looking in his eyes and there were a thousand apologies swimming in his gaze. Unbidden, she burst into tears; bone jerking sobs that wracked her body and made her eyes burn and he was there; with his strong arms and iron frame to hold all the pieces of her together. She absolutely loathed him for that – for taking everything away and replacing it with this shell of a sympathy. There was a stitch in her chest, burning and burning until her lungs were on fire.
"I—I—didn't," she sobbed into his hakama, clutching the lapels for dear life, "want—to marry—you!"
She felt the steady rhythm of his breathing, the unsteady beating of his heart, the world weary sigh as he said, "I know. I'm sorry."
And she sobbed harder; thinking about Sarada; how her daughter was going to be raised by the likes of Madara. "I—didn't!"
"I'm sorry," he said, again and again until she felt hollowed out and empty, lying with her face against his chest, feeling the uncomfortably damp spot of tears and snot on the expensive, black silk of his haori, until finally falling asleep.
For an eternity and a half, he held her close. His heart didn't palpitate, his eyes didn't burn – but nonetheless, something in his heart shriveled up, but not quite died. He didn't want to set the world on fire – he just wanted to keel over, and make everything the way it used to be, again. He didn't want to slay this woman's demons – but he didn't want her to burn in the darkest pits of hell either.
He'd been there most his life. It wasn't pretty. It was cold, miserable and malignant. It left burns and scars that never truly healed. It hardened the heart.
And this woman had a soft, malleable heart – one that she'd passed on to his daughter.
He never wanted to take that away – not from her, not from Sarada. He'd wondered if he'd feel vindication, spite or even malicious satisfaction from her pain.
He didn't.
He just felt a fettered sort of hollowness – slightly more nauseating than the multiple times he'd held the gun at an innocent and pulled the trigger. His stomach didn't roil – he was too used to that.
But his blood did curdle – not with hatred, but a bitter sort of regret.
So for an eternity and a half, he held her close, wrapped up in a bundle of white, embroidered silk, and remembered the first time he'd touched her – how she'd arched under his mouth, how she'd whimpered at his touch, how full and perfect her breast had felt in the palm of his hand, how she'd been soft and tight and snug around him.
And he remembered how, just a few hours ago, she'd tried to defile herself – to get him to defile her. how broken, he wondered, she must've been to go that far?
He breathed long and hard, trying to remember why he'd ever been drawn to her, why he hadn't been more careful, why he'd set a path for a collision course that had spiraled both their lived out of control. She breathed into his neck, and her held her closer, tighter; because she was now in a den of lions, and if he weren't careful, she wasn't going to make it.
It was a ways past dawn when he finally mustered enough strength to carry her out. Past the south-west yuan, past the ceremonial tea room, past Itachi's bedroom; he walked and walked, letting the weight of her distract him from this world – his kingdom, his home, this infallible clan that he was a part of; that his daughter was now a part of.
His arm quivered. He swallowed.
Sarada would be an Uchiha now. One day, in the not-so-distant future, she would have to carry this weight – of unwavering, unbearable expectations, of taking an innocent life, of having to live with the shame, the reproach, and the guilt.
He didn't want that. He'd never wanted that.
And neither, he realized with a subtle sort of dawning horror, had Haruno Sakura. His arm around her tightened imperceptibly.
His mouth ran dry.
Haruno Sakura was a wise, capable woman. She made clever, informed decisions. And there had been a sagaciousness behind her decision to keep him away from Sarada. No, he thought stubbornly. No. that was no excuse.
He was mulish, he knew that. Uchiha Sasuke was nothing, if not stubborn.
If she'd come to him, he thought hollowly, then they could have worked together to find a solution. He would have never have abandoned her. He would've had stood by her side. He would've had hid her.
He might have had fallen in love with her.
But she hadn't, he thought with conviction. She hadn't come to him, and now they were here; trapped, with little to no choice; a sad mockery of a family.
He slid the shouji open with his foot, and was startled back when a pair of wide, round, dark eyes blinked at him.
"Is – Is she okay?" Sarada asked, fearful, he interpreted with a twinge in his heart, of her Mama's wellbeing.
"She's alright. Just sleeping," he told her kindly, feeling his arms losing a battle with exhaustion. He stepped forward and Sarada scurried before him, leaping on the bed, taking the covers aside and pulling them over Sakura when he put her down.
She tucked her mother in, kind and compassionate to the bone, and the conviction he'd so stubbornly held on to earlier, withered away.
She'd kept Sarada away from him, and she'd made their daughter into this beautiful, kind-hearted, loving person, he never would've been able to raise. She'd taken a part of him and herself, and she'd raised her to be right. A good human being.
Sarada was a good human being.
He let out an exasperated, apprehensive breath, because, how on earth, was he going to retain that humanity?
"Papa?" said Sarada, questioning, and innocent, climbing towards him. He didn't quite realize how she slid into his arms, into his heart, and wormed herself a home there. It had taken eight years for them to get here, to his moment, where he could be her Papa and she could be his daughter.
He held her close, and prayed to all the deities he knew of, for perseverance, for tenacity, and ran a hand through her hair. It was just a few inches below her shoulders now, thick, black and healthy. "Did you not sleep?" he asked, leaning his cheek on the top of her head.
"No," she told him. "I was too grossed out."
"Why?" he asked, just a smidge amused and a whole lot curious.
"Because," she mumbled, petulant and grousing, "I thought you were doing the sex thing with Mama."
Had Sasuke had enough breath, or enough strength, he would've choked on air. Being that as it was, he was exhausted and just glad to have his daughter in his arms. So he hid his mortification in her hair and inhaled a deep, cleansing breath.
"Did you?" she asked.
"No," he answered quickly, because he did not have it in him to have that conversation again. Very morosely, he looked at the sleeping form of Haruno Sakura and willed her to wake up. She didn't.
"Why not?"
"Sarada," he implored, chagrinned and discomfited.
"What?" asked his daughter, innocent in her depravity.
"It's not…We don't – It's not a very good topic of conversation."
"Why not?"
"Because," he groused, completely forgetting about his internal conflict about Haruno Sakura's life choices and how they could've played a role in paving a different path for them all. "It's – it's just not."
"Shh," Sarada admonished. "You'll wake Mama up."
Berated, he shot her a subdued look, then held her small form to his chest again. "I know. You should go to sleep, too."
"She snuggled into his arms. "Will you stay with us tonight?"
"Yes," he answered, not even hesitating, because the moment word got out that he'd slept in Itachi's room after their marriage, Madara would know, that something was amiss. There would be consequences.
It was an odd feeling – having your actions reflect on the people you cared for. Sasuke didn't like it.
"Can I sleep with you?" Sarada asked.
He sighed, weary. "No. I will take the floor. You sleep with your Mama."
Perceptive as she was, Sarada didn't question him. She did, however, held him closer.
"You're good, Papa."
He wrapped her tighter in his embrace. "Only for you."
tbc
