disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: les and emily and sonya.
notes: i should take vacations more often, they're inspiring. also, fuckyes Coachella.

title: red eye
summary: Sasuke and Sakura fall in love at thirty-thousand feet. — Sasuke/Sakura; 36/5o.

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Sakura stretched her legs. It was late, and the plane was just about the take off—she'd been comfortably settled in first class for ten minutes, and was waiting for the flight's last stragglers to board.

(Oh, the joy of late-day travel.)

And then she'd be heading home.

Dear Buddha, the thought had her nearly crying with relief. Being across an ocean for so long had her antsy—it wasn't something she could help. A consulting doctor, Sakura's job took her all over the world, and the chances to curl up in her little kitchen were few and far between. Those rare chances were treasured, cherished, never squandered.

And this was one of those chances. Sakura was going home.

Konoha was so close, Sakura could almost taste it.

She looked around the first-class cabin with a sigh. Economy was a packed, as always, but the first-class cabin was near empty. There were four businessmen sitting together, all blue-chinned and tired-looking. There was a little girl and her brother sitting in front of Sakura—neither could have been older than ten years old. The last passenger in first class was a woman in a cranberry red power suit, and she, too, had kicked off her heels. Sakura caught her eye, and nodded approvingly.

The woman grinned red-painted lips, and waved a little.

Sakura sighed in satisfaction. If that was it, it would be a beautiful flight, she thought with a smile. The seat next to her was empty; the seat beneath her was cushy and perfect and she had a thick blanket and thicker pillow to keep her comfortable.

Sakura once again thanked her lucky stars for that internship with Tsunade. The woman may have been almost clinically insane, but she was legend in her own right and, regardless that she drank like a fish and often shirked work, she was everything Sakura had ever wanted to be in the medical world.

She sighed again, and sat back in the seat. Just a few more minutes and they'd be in the air, and she'd be able to get some sleep.

The thought was utterly enchanting.

Sakura closed her eyes and smiled to herself. She could almost taste the espresso, could already almost smell the—cologne? What?

Her eyes snapped open, and she looked up to find her vision obscured by wide shoulders, narrow waist, and black suit white-shirt man-ness.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Her perfect, solitary flight was in danger of being ruined by the presence of this man.

This would not stand.

Sakura huffed, and continued to glare at his chest (it was a very nice chest, but she was not going to tell this perfection-ruiner that). He needed to go away. He needed to go away now. There were plenty of other seats in first class, and she'd be damned if he—oh.

The man sat down with an audible exhalation of breath, and Sakura got her first good look at his features.

Oh.

Oh.

Okay.

Well.

That changed things (no it did not). He was… he was pretty. Like, actually pretty. Prettier than Sakura was (what was this seriously).

She held her breath and counted to ten. Look at the ceiling, don't breathe, don't breathe, don't breathe.

Sakura got control of herself.

She tilted her head, and smiled at him. "Headed home?"

He raised his head, and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Dark bangs fell into his face. She had to restrain herself from brushing them away. She didn't know where the urge came from (probably from always brushing Naruto's bangs out of his face, that moron), but she pushed it away.

"Yes," he murmured, inclining his head a scant inch. "Konoha."

"Me, too. I haven't been home since—"

The roar of the jet's engines cut off her next words. Sakura swallowed both the rest of the sentence and her stomach. It had come up to her mouth, and had she not been prepared for it, she would have lost the contents of her stomach everywhere, and wouldn't that have been just a great first impression.

Sakura hated take-off.

She didn't say anything again until they were well off the ground, and even then, it was more to breathe a sigh of relief that they hadn't crashed and died and been burnt to a crisp. "Thank Buddha…"

She heard him chuckle.

Sakura looked over at him. His lips were still quirked up at the edges.

"What? I don't like flying. Or, I just don't like the taking off part. I don't mind the rest. But the takeoff… makes me grit my teeth, to put it lightly," she told him. "I'm Sakura, by the way."

He nodded. "Sasuke."

She grinned, razor-sharp. "It's nice to meet you."

"Hn," he murmured.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He stared blankly at her.

Sakura raised an eyebrow, and shot him an amused half-smile. "You don't talk to people much, do you?"

"Not really."

"That's too bad," Sakura told him, honest.

He just shrugged.

Sakura stared out the jet window and watched the sun burn across the clouds below them. She squinted against the crimson light, and thought about how her little kitchen would look, cream and yellow and airy, in this kind of light.

Almost home, almost home, almost home…

The crackle of the intercom system had Sakura looking up.

"Sorry to both you, ladies and gents. We'll be coming around to take your orders—supper will be in half an hour," said the flight attendant.

Right on cue, Sakura's stomach grumbled. Sasuke looked over, eyebrow raised, to find Sakura grinning sheepishly.

"What? I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything since the crappy continental I had before I left the hotel."

"Lunch?"

Sakura shook her head. "Work, last minute shopping, last minute packing, just… everything. And getting to the airport—getting through security took forever, I just wanted to go home."

She paused and sighed. "It was a long day."

"Hn."

Because that just said so much about him.

"What about—?"

"'Scuse me. Sorry t'interrupt, but, uh, I need your orders—chicken or fish or lamb? They all come with mashed potatoes and greens."

Ugh, plane fare, Sakura thought. But it was better than nothing, her stomach reminded her with another loud growl. "Mmm, chicken, I guess. Sasuke?"

"Lamb," he murmured.

The stewardess nodded, and moved on. She shot a glance back at Sasuke, flushed, and seemed to giggle a little.

"You get that a lot, don't you?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes. Often at the worst possible times."

"Mmm," Sakura hummed.

The sweet scent of hot food filtered through the first class cabin. "Oh, for Buddha's sake, do they have to do things like that?"

Sasuke looked over at her, his lips actually pulling up in a smile (Sakura had a feeling that he didn't smile often, and that was a shame). "'Course. Nothing like a tease."

She shook her head at him, amused. "Tease?"

He just shrugged.

The food came.

It smelled heavenly. Sakura peeled the foil wrapping away from her chicken—it looked like lemongrass, but she couldn't tell, and really, right at that second, she didn't care—and happily dug in. There was nothing ladylike about it, but Sakura didn't have the energy to try to impress anyone, right then.

(The woman in the cranberry suit across the aisle caught her eye again and smirked.)

Sakura shoved a bite of chicken in her mouth, chewed and swallowed, and then raised her eyes to Sasuke's face. "So," she said. "Any siblings?"

"…What?"

"We're going to be sitting next to each other for the next twelve hours. Tell me you have something better to do."

He seemed to measure her for a long moment.

"Two," he said finally. "An older brother—" and here he ground his jaw just a little, and Sakura had to wonder if the relationship was strained "—and a younger sister. You?"

Sakura shook her head. "Biologically an only child. But there's—well, it's complicated, but I have a sort-of brother who was sort-of adopted only sort of not and he's actually kind of also my cousin."

He looked at her, and then ever-so-slightly quirked his eyebrow.

(Sakura defiantly ignored the lurch in her stomach. Hello, attraction.)

"It's a long story. But Naruto ended up being my brother. Either way he's a moron, but I love him. Favourite colour?"

Sasuke let out a long-suffering sigh. "You talk too much."

"And you don't seem to talk enough. What's your favourite colour? It's not a complicated question!"

"Navy."

And that was only the beginning.

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"Choose; being decomposed alive by flesh-eating maggots, or being ripped to pieces by a shark?"

It was eleven-thirty, and they were somewhere over the middle of the ocean. The cabin lights in both economy and business had been out for hours, but Sakura and Sasuke sat in first class, and whispered the night away.

"You are the most morbid girl I have ever met."

"I'm not a girl, now choose!"

"The shark," Sasuke grumbled.

Sakura smiled wide and said "Your turn."

"Hn."

"Sasuke."

He groaned, and said "Choose; fire or water?"

"That's so boring. Part of Choose is grossing the other person out! Haven't you ever played it before?"

"Sakura," he stressed.

"Ugh, fine. Fire. Choose; never sleeping ever again or never going home."

"Never sleeping."

And Sakura understood.

Having a home to go back was too important for things like sleep.

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Sakura was looking out the window over the wide expanse of water. It was completely black; seeing was completely impossible.

But the stars shined bright overhead and Sakura breathed a sigh of wonder. "We're the past, Sasuke. We're seeing history."

"Hn?"

"The stars. That light is from millions and millions of years ago. Light travels so fast, but we're only just seeing it now. It fascinates me."

She was pretty sure he was staring at her strangely.

(But then, most people did.)

"It's just… proof, you know? Proof that we're—humans, I mean—aren't the be-all-end-all. After we kill ourselves off, the stars will still shine. The world won't end when humans do."

"Hn."

"It's reassuring to me. That no matter how bad we as a race screw up, we're really just a blip in time. Everything will keep turning for another billion years, until the sun blows up. We'll all be long dead before then, but still. There's something… I don't know. I probably sound crazy."

"I think you have a point," he said quietly.

"You do?"

He nodded.

Sakura brushed flyaway strands of pale pink hair out of her face and grinned.

"Thanks," she said. "For saying that."

"Don't worry about it," Sasuke shrugged.

"I won't, but—"

Sakura decided she'd not say anything else, because the quiet would be good.

(But sometimes she just couldn't stop her mouth.)

"—looking at stars is like drinking champagne, bubbles in my nose, silly and sweet, rolling across my tongue like pop-pop-pop. And it's kind of nice, you know, because no one else has ever done this with me before. No one ever does things like this."

And that was when she realized that she was over-tired and that she was probably talking like she ought to have been institutionalized. And, for god's sake, maybe she should have been. Actually, most doctors, probably, ought to have been institutionalized.

…She was thinking too much again.

Sasuke just looked at her, and said "Go to sleep, Sakura. You're talking crazy."

Talking crazy didn't have anything on what went through Sakura's head.

It would be morning, soon.

She sighed, and hummed we'll do it all, everything, on our own.

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"Sakura," a quiet voice in her ear whispered. It was deep and attractive and where have I heard that, before?

"Wha—wha' time izit?" she yawned, rubbing sleep from her eye with the heel of her right hand.

(There was going to be makeup everywhere.)

"Look out the window," he said again.

Sakura did.

Konoha stretched out before her, skyscrapers and shantytown houses all in rows. The roads looked like veins, and even from miles and miles above them, Sakura could feel them bring the city to life.

Konoha breathed, and Sakura knew that she was home.

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"Thank you for keeping me company. It was… nice. Talking to you, I mean. It was nice to meet you."

"Hn."

"Oh! Um, my bag—it's right there. Could you grab it? Thanks. Um. I guess I should—"

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Right. Bye!"

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The cab home was lonesome.

Sakura unlocked her front door and dragged her suitcase in behind her. She closed the door, and stood, for a moment, all alone.

Her house sang in response. Her little kitchen called; the floor creaked welcome, and Sakura smiled.

(She was probably never going to see him again.)

But her kitchen was warm and happy, pale yellow with white trim, looking like sunshine, and Sakura was okay with that. Sometimes you met people for one moment in life, and they changed your world, but then you'd never be able to see them again.

And she was okay with that.

Really.

Sakura upended her purse on the table, searching for a cigarette.

(Sometimes she just needed a fix.)

Lipstick, change, wallet, eyeliner, more change, a pack of gum all fell out, dropping every which way in a pell-mell of the ordinary.

No cigarettes. Damn it, Sakura thought with a sigh.

But there was also a white card. It looked a bit like a business card. Sakura picked it up and flipped it over.

There was a number scrawled there, and the words

I owe you a cigarette.
-Sasuke

Sakura looked up, and smiled.

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fin.
notes2: happy april fools, all! now i'm off to go drinking, because it's FRIDAY, FRIDAY, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY i hate that song