Two Pink Lines

Chapter 2

Sasuke opened his eyes, his head hurting from the amount of alcohol that he had imbibed the night before. Despite the pain and sickness, he was currently feeling, he'd slept better than he had in a long time. Itachi's ghost hadn't haunted him during the night enabling Sasuke to get a better rest than he'd had in a while.

As he lay there, he heard a soft groan from beside him caused him to turn his head and glance at the woman he'd spent the night with. His eyes went wide when he saw the pink hair sticking out from underneath the blankets. He felt bile rising in his throat, he'd never wanted to treat Sakura like a one-night stand, and that's all that could ever be between them, he was too damaged for anything else.

Sitting up in the bed, Sasuke wondered if now was a good time to leave, he didn't think he could face her after the things he'd done to her during the night. Memories of just how rough he'd been with her flashed through his brain and he felt ashamed that he'd gone so far with his teammate. He could remember stripping her slowly and then roughly taking her against the wall, he knew his hands had likely left bruises on her thighs from where he'd held her as he slammed into her, from the wall they had made it to the kitchen table, then the floor and then finally the bed. Where Sasuke had finally gone to sleep after another round of violent lovemaking. Sakura hadn't complained once about his roughness, in fact she had given back as good as she had been given. Sasuke felt like his back had been ripped to shreds from her nails, and then there were a couple places where she'd bitten him rather hard. It turns out his Sakura was a little bit of hellcat in bed, but that didn't mean that Sasuke wanted to risk their friendship by continuing to sleep with her. No, this could never happen again, Sasuke was going to have to avoid her like the plaque for a little while. He didn't want to hurt her, but she needed to know that Sasuke couldn't be the man that she needed him to be, he was damaged beyond repair and Sasuke doubted that he would be able to keep his suicidal tendencies at bay, he didn't go out and try to get himself killed, but he didn't exactly refuse the dangerous missions either. Even though he only had one arm, he could still fight like hell. Sasuke didn't want to leave Sakura alone when he knew that he would eventually be killed on a mission. Sasuke didn't want either Naruto, or Sakura to know that that's what his end game was. He didn't want to be a burden to either of his friends, they deserved more than having to deal with his darkness all the time.

Sighing, Sasuke leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Sakura's head that he could see.

"I'm sorry, Sakura, I never wanted to be that rough with you. You deserve someone that knows how to be gentle and kind and can return your love with everything within them. You don't deserve my darkness; I'll only end up hurting you when I leave." He wasn't talking about leaving the village again either, he was talking about leaving this life, because he was determined he was going to join his brother in the afterlife one day soon. Sasuke was tired, he was tired of drinking all the time and the seeking women to sleep with to help him forget all the mistakes that he'd made. There had to be a time that it was okay to just let him go and let him die. He knew that neither Naruto nor Sakura were willing to do that, which was one of the reasons Sasuke tried to take as many dangerous missions as possible away from the village that he could get. He didn't want either of them to try and save him, they didn't realize that he was a hopeless case.

"I truly wish I could be who you need me to be." Sasuke murmured. "I just don't think that will ever be a possibility." Sasuke pushed himself to his feet and headed out of the bedroom in search of his clothes, he knew it would be best for him to be gone before Sakura woke up.

Once Sasuke was dressed he exited the apartment and started making his way down the street. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he wondered if Kakashi would have a mission for him yet. Sasuke didn't like being in the village for long, the memories of his brother would start to eat at him. And considering that today was the anniversary of Itachi's death, Sasuke really didn't want to be here. His brother would still be alive if he hadn't been forced to kill their clan. He could have found treatment for whatever illness he'd had that had robbed him of his life if he'd been allowed to remain in his home.

"Sasuke-bastard!" Sasuke grimaced as he heard Naruto's loud voice call out, shortly before the blonde man crashed into him, making Sasuke's already spinning head spin even more.

"Guess what!" Naruto shouted right in Sasuke's ear, and Sasuke glared at the blonde man before shoving him away from him.

"Kakashi's stepping down and you're becoming the Hokage?" Sasuke asked, and Naruto shook his head.

"I would be excited about that too, but no, Kakashi is too lazy to step down right now." Naruto told him. Sasuke raised his eyebrows at that comment but Naruto ignored the look and kept right on talking.

"Hinata is pregnant." Naruto proclaimed, surprising Sasuke even more. Naruto and Hinata hadn't been engaged maybe a few months so to find out that Hinata was already expecting was a surprise.

"You're barely even engaged."" Sasuke told his friend. "I think you've kind of jumped the gun a bit." Naruto shrugged; all he knew was that he was finally going to have a family of his own. He didn't care about the rest of it, he was going to the responsible thing and marry Hinata of course, he wasn't going to let her be judged by the villagers.

"That doesn't matter to me." Naruto told him. "I'm happy that I'm finally going to have a family. I didn't think I would ever find someone to accept me as I am to even start a family with me." Those words made Sasuke's heart ache for his friend. Naruto had grown up without the love of any parents, and until the academy he'd never really had any friends. Sasuke might have lost his family, but at least he had known what it was like to have one to begin with.

"Hinata has always had a crush on you." Sasuke told him. "You were just too blind to see it." Naruto's face turned red and he raised a hand to rub at the back of his head.

"I can't help that I've been a little dumb about such things." Naruto admitted. "It wasn't like I really had anyone to talk too back then. That was even before Iruka acknowledged me and I didn't even know about Jiraiya then. What if I don't know how to raise a kid?"

"You'll figure it out. You'll want to give him or her everything that you never had as a child." Sasuke said quietly. "You'll do fine, I don't think you have to worry about not knowing how to be a parent." Naruto frowned, there was something off about Sasuke, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Sasuke had been different ever since he'd been allowed to return to the village during the war. Naruto and Sakura tried to spend as much time with Sasuke as possible, Naruto didn't want Sasuke to feel like he didn't fit in anymore. He wanted his best friend to be comfortable and at home again.

"What's going on with you?" Naruto asked, turning to stare at his paler than normal friend.

"I'm a little hungover." Sasuke admitted. "I really had a few too many drinks last night."

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that." Naruto said. "You should probably slow down on the alcohol before it kills you or Sakura kills you." Sasuke flinched, she was going to kill him anyways after discovering that he had left her alone. Which is usually how Sasuke's one-night stands ended but he still felt bad about leaving Sakura like that. She deserved so much more than a damaged man who wasn't sure that he could even love someone else.

"I don't drink that much." Sasuke said quietly. "It's not like I get drunk every night." Just most nights Sasuke thought.

"It's still enough to cause you some damage, if your sick then you can't go on missions." Naruto said quietly. "I don't want you to hurt yourself, I want you to get better."

"I don't know if someone like me can get better." Sasuke told him. "I've done so many things wrong, I need to pay for those mistakes."

"You were a major help in the war." Naruto pointed out. "You've more than made up for the things that you had done as a teenager." Sasuke shook his head, he knew Naruto would see it that way. Naruto was a little too forgiving, especially when it came to anything Sasuke had done in the past.

"I almost made things a lot worse too." Sasuke replied. "I would have ended up killing you and all the other tailed beasts."

"I stopped you." Naruto pointed out. "So, there's no need to worry about the might have been, it's all over now." Sasuke shrugged.

"For you maybe, I still face it every time I go to sleep." Sasuke replied honestly.

"There's people you can talk to about that sort of thing." Naruto replied, frowning at Sasuke. "Maybe if you talk to someone, you'll stop drinking yourself into an early grave."

"Maybe that's the best place for me." Sasuke said quietly, pausing his footsteps to stare at his friend. "I have no place here anymore, not since I lost my family."

"You don't mean that do you?" Naruto asked. "Because you'll always have a family in me, Sakura and Kakashi and even Sai."

"You don't deserve to have to deal with the fallout of having me back in the village. I see the looks that some of the villagers give you, they don't think that I should have been allowed back." Sasuke said quietly. "You've finally earned some respect in this place; you don't need me making things worse for you."

"I'm a grown man, I can handle what the villagers do." Naruto replied. "I can't handle them making you feel like you don't have a place here anymore, you've sacrificed your own arm for crying out loud."

"So, did you, trying to stop me." Sasuke pointed out. "I just want to be happy again, if that means going to an early grave, I accept that."

"I don't accept it." Naruto replied. "I won't let you go without a fight if I have to talk Kakashi into keeping you from taking dangerous missions I will. But I'm not letting you go, Sakura and I need you, probably more than you realize."

"You wouldn't think that after what I had done to her last night." Sasuke muttered. "I was a little too rough with her."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked, staring at Sasuke with a puzzled expression on his face.

"You don't want to know." Sasuke replied. "But you wouldn't be very happy with me if you did what happened."

"Is it the reason for your depressed attitude?" Naruto asked. "I don't think I've ever seen you in such a state before." Sasuke shrugged. He didn't like Naruto seeing this side of him right now either, but there wasn't anything that Sasuke could do about it. Other than go home and drink even more alcohol than he'd had last night. Though at this point drinking probably wouldn't help him forget the memories of him slamming into Sakura or leaving the dark bruises on her thighs. Sakura had given him more pleasure than he'd gotten from the sexual acts than he'd gotten in a long time. Sasuke could see himself getting addicted to her, but Sasuke knew that he liked his sex to be rough. Sakura didn't deserve to have to deal with that, she deserved someone that could make sweet love to her. Sasuke didn't think he would ever have that in him to do that.

"No, I've just a lot on my mind." Sasuke said. "There's a lot of memories that I've been having trouble forgetting."

"Don't let your memories make you make a stupid decision." Naruto said quietly. "Sakura and I wouldn't be the same without you."

"And that's part of the reason, I'm still fighting." Sasuke said quietly. "Until you guys can finally face the truth and let me go."

"What is the truth?" Naruto asked. "Because I don't think I know what you're talking about."

"The truth is your lives would be a whole lot better without someone like me in it." Sasuke replied. "I don't think I'll ever be the person you and Sakura seem to think I am. I'm too damaged and I don't think I'll ever be fixed."

"Sakura and I can hold your broken parts until they heal." Naruto said quietly. "We're willing to do anything it takes to make you feel better. It hurts to know that you're struggling so much when you don't have too." Sasuke swallowed hard, he really wished that he could let Sakura and Naruto do that, but they both deserved to live a life full of happiness. Kami knows that they deserve it after everything that Sasuke had put them through. Sasuke really didn't understand why they cared so much about him; it would have been easier if they could just let him go.

"I know your hurting Sasuke." Naruto said quietly. "I see more than you realize, but you have to know that Sakura and I will fight like hell to keep you with us. So please just keep fighting, things will get better even if it doesn't look like it." Sasuke nodded, he didn't understand how Naruto had become so wise in his young years, but he was kind of glad to know that Naruto was still willing to fight to keep Sasuke in his life.

"Congrats on the brat." Sasuke said quietly. "I know your worried about being a good parent, but you have too many people in your life now to keep you from messing up. You're always going to have someone there to guide you when you feel lost. Let's just hope Hinata's father doesn't kill you for getting her pregnant before the wedding."

"Honestly, I never even thought about him." Naruto said, his face going pale as he thought about his future father-in-law. "He's going to kill me."

"Probably." Sasuke said amused at the idea of Naruto not even thinking about Hinata's father's reaction to her pregnancy. "Things certainly must have gotten heated for you two to just jump into bed together without thought about the consequences."

"Hinata's blow jobs are out of this world." Naruto mumbled. "I wanted to make her feel as good as she made me."

"First of all, that's too much information that I didn't need to know." Sasuke told him. "Secondly, perhaps you should have refrained from spending time alone together until after the wedding." Naruto shrugged.

"I'm a normal guy, I get hot and bothered just like anyone else, spending time alone with her didn't make any difference. She made me hard no matter what we were doing." Naruto told him.

"Again, I didn't need to know that." Sasuke replied. "But perhaps you shouldn't have gone anywhere alone. Next time ask Iruka, I'm sure he'll be enough birth control for you since you don't know how to use a condom." Naruto blinked at him, before offering a small smile. Whatever had been bothering Sasuke seemed to be gone now, for that Naruto was glad. He didn't like seeing Sasuke so depressed without being able to fix it.

"I do know how to use a condom, it was just that I didn't have any, and I'm pretty sure Iruka wouldn't have been happy about being used to prevent any fun stuff from happening." Naruto told him and Sasuke chuckled. Naruto was too easy to get riled up, and it seemed to have made Naruto forget about Sasuke's issues for the time being.

"I'm going home to get some sleep." Sasuke told him. "Try not to cause too much havoc while I'm gone." Naruto shrugged.

"I can't make any promises." Naruto replied. "I have to have fun when I can."

"Don't do anything that Hinata is going to kill you for." Sasuke amended. "She's going to need you to take care of that baby." Naruto shrugged and waved before taking off jogging in the direction of Iruka's apartment. Sasuke was kind of glad that he'd ran into his loud-mouthed friend. Naruto had a bright personality and it seemed to be able to warm even the coldest of hearts. Sasuke felt less depressed whenever Naruto was around, but things were going to change since Hinata was pregnant. Sasuke wouldn't hang around as much knowing that Naruto's attention needed to be on her now. Sasuke would just have to find another way to keep his depression at bay, whether it be alcohol or sex, or even both. Maybe Kakashi would give him a mission that would finally end up being his last, Sasuke could only hope. He was ready to be away from this pathetic existence.