dishes on the floor (shatterpoint)

rating: t
genre: tragedy, angst
pairings: kakasaku
POV: Sakura
other notes: prompt fill for "There's blood on my/your hands.", this ends on an unhappy and unfulfilled note (no happy endings here)
word count: 1,125

"Don't tell me what you should do, tell me what you want!"

Sakura is near tears, and she hates herself a little bit, because she'd promised herself—promised that girl she'd been once—that she would never again break over a man who can't bring himself to love her the way she needs to be loved.

She hates him more though; Kakashi was supposed to be different.

"Don't you understand, Sakura? I'm no good for you!"

In an absent corner of her mind, she wonders how they got here: screaming at each other in Sakura's too small living room, the walls echoing with too much they've left unsaid for so long, the remains of their take out scattered across her coffee table, wine glass mostly empty.

"You don't get to tell me that. This isn't about deserving. The only thing this is about is me and you and how we feel."

She feels like she's bargaining with the battered remains of her heart.

Sakura should have chosen another game; she has too much of her shishō in her.

And Kakashi is shaking his head, no no no, like he can shake her words off, like her heart isn't enough to pierce through to him.

She wonders if she got on her knees and begged for her life if he'd hear her instead of whatever story he's playing out in his head.

It feels like she's begging for her life.

"There's blood on my hands, Sakura. I'm a monster. I break everything I touch. I'm not risking that. I'm not risking you."

She'd cry for how his voice cracks through, but she's too busy crying for herself and all that he is letting fall to pieces at his feet.

"So? We're shinobi, Kakashi. You think you're the only one with blood on your hands?"

"You couldn't understand. You aren't like me, Sakura. You put things back together. You're not a monster like me."

Her breath catches in her lungs, catches like a knife in her lungs.

She's immolating.

She's crumbling.

She's ash and dust.

She'd thought—

Years now, they've been doing this dance.

Years.

Ever since Kakashi smiled at her after the war had ground down to something they dared call peace and told her to drop the "sensei".

Years of shared meals and training session and missions, of laughter and stories and quiet secrets.

She'd thought—

But even now, more than a decade out from Team 7, and he still thinks—

Sakura is shinobi.

And there has been so much blood spilt for that, for her to claim that title.

She'd thought he saw her. Saw her as she is, fault lines and all, but now—

The part of her that is small and petty and cruel wonders if this has all been a game or, worse maybe, all in her head.

She's done that before, after all, seen more than what was being offered, found love in the barest facsimile of courtesy.

"You think blood makes you monstrous?"

It's a cold ancient thing speaking through her, a creature in greyscale with dripping fangs: every rage and every slight honed wicked sharp, a death knell, Sakura at twelve and nothing she can do will matter in the face of the boys in front of her.

"You think I'm something that you have to deserve?"

i.

On a mission with Ino-Pig and Chōji and Shikamaru, Asuma-sensei a faint impression of amusement and smoke behind them, everything running smoothly, jokes and oblique references and hair tips, they'll be back in Konoha in a few more days, the mission over but for the return trip.

And then high-alert, hands on weapons, Shikamaru directing with hand signs in the quiet before the storm until it's quicksilver motion, Ino's hair spinning and shadows blooming and a choked curse from Chōji as he dodges a fireball, heat against her skin.

Kunai curled comfortably in her palms as as she moves, rainwater slick, counting heartbeats.

And there.

As easy as breathing.

All her training coming down on a single point.

Even rocks split seamlessly under her touch: ribs stand no chance.

iii.

Stumbling out of an operating room after six straight hours of surgery, the phantom taste of poison on her tongue, weariness in every line of her body.

Having to stumble through the explanation: "I'm sorry, there was nothing more we could do, the damage was just too bad. I'm sorry. The body will be available to you tomorrow. I'm sorry, I could do nothing more."

And the tears then, the lover beating at her chest, "But I love her, but I love her, but I love her," and no strength to pull her away, no heart to pull away.

Going home to sit in the bottom of the shower until the water has long turned cold. "We can't save them all, Sakura," and the pat to the head all as empty as the way sobs sound bouncing off the tiles.

xvii.

Eyes distant and all the more cold for the missing warmth. "I would send Shizune on this, but she's dealing with that outbreak on the border and this can't wait."

And she's never had a mission scroll with that seal but she knows what it means.

"You know what to do."

And she does.

Knives in the dark.

So easy to make a heart stop, just the brush of a palm, she knows the nerves so well.

xxii.

His hubris is a familiar choking weight on her chest, but she's shouldered heavier burdens.

So easy to look harmless, take a sword through the stomach, and smile.

She's long learned to look and find where creatures keep their hearts.

?.

"Last one into the base buys the team dinner!"

A snap, and she rides the body between her thighs down to the ground as it slumps.

Fierce porcelain grin, and she races, adrenaline bright in her veins.

"I'm not a prize. I'm not your absolution."

She's going to have scars on her cheeks from where the tears are burning as they fall.

"I never thought—"

"Get out."

He's pale, red blotches high on his cheeks and hair in disarray.

If she was something softer, she'd gentle them back down, pull them together on the couch, run her fingers through that hair, tell him she understands, that she forgives him, that she'll wait.

Sakura is not a soft thing.

She is a shattered thing, and she has too many edges for mercy.

"Sakura—"

"Get out."

He goes.

As she washes dishes in the sink, Sakura pretends to not notice the way she's scrubbing at the creases of her palms for something that is not there.

Sakura is tired of putting things back together.

It's so much easier to break.