Title: And Miles To Go
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,444
Summary/Description: Itachi is dead, but there are many miles to go before he settles in his grave.
Warning/Spoilers: A bit of OOC. Lame metaphor(s). Written by me. …That's about it, I think. No spoilers, I should think.
A/N: Okies. This takes place a week after Itachi's death (by Sasuke's hands, of course). Sakura and Sasuke are on their way to having an established relationship. It's angst. Yeah. (Someday, someday, I'll stop torturing these two.) Sasuke POV, but there's a switch, and I hope it's not terribly distracting.
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto… Any of you having nightmares yet? Well, I don't own it, (OMG!) so get down on your knees and give praise.
Note: /Italics/ ----- Flashbacks
"Ohayou, Sasuke-kun!"
Sakura brings the sun with her, flinging open the windows to let the lazy ribbons of afternoon light find their way into the tension-heavy hospital room. Sasuke squints tiredly, sitting up as the bustling pink blur flits about his quarters, tidying and straightening and refreshing.
"Aa," he says, quietly. The mere action of sitting up has made him become a tad breathless; he tries to not let her hear this. A week later, and his punctured lungs still pain him, but he does not wish to make her worry.
/Poisoned needles sliding between his ribs, their passage made easy by the chest wound he had acquired earlier; blood and steel greeting and mating. The hand that urged the hidden needles into him was steady and slow; its purple-tipped twin found Sasuke's neck, and gripped him firmly./
She appears at his side, face split into a cheerful smile, and he wonders how any fair-minded god on the higher plains that ruled the earth could look at him, and think him deserving of her. He never asked for this; this loyalty, this love, but it has always been there, hasn't it? Like a daffodil facing the horizon, on the lookout for spring's return, Sakura has always been there.
It is almost automatic, the slight tilt of his head that bares his cheek to her. Her lips are cool and soft against the rough skin, patched with bruises and abrasions.
/Being dragged along the stony forest floor that was their battlefield; the crack of the oak tree at his back as it split and snapped from the impact with which his brother flung him./
"How was your morning?" She is unpacking her bag, green eyes holding his in genuine interest. He swallows, and tries to not think of how undeserving he is of this when he answers,
"Fine."
"That's nice. Naruto would have come to visit you too; he's been meaning to for a while now. But Tsunade-sama has been pushing him really far these days; preparation for his ascension to the Rokudaime, I hear."
"Hn," the sole remaining Uchiha offers a bit distractedly as his thoughts drag him further into the gaping cavern of his mind. Once the memories come, they do not stop; they have him in a chokehold, and escape is futile. How can you run away from your demons when you yourself invited them in?
/"Your hate, little brother."
It was nothing short of amazing how the bastard could still summon that cool indifference, even now, bloody, bruised, his right arm hanging limply by his side.
"Your hate. Will it be enough?"/
"Are you hungry, Sasuke-kun? I brought apples."
/"I don't think so."/
"I got a big discount on them at the market; the vendor recognised me from a mission where I'd helped out on her farm. Wasn't that nice of her?"
/"Never. You must let it consume you. Your hate, little brother. You must make it last."/
"Sasuke-kun?"
/"To defeat me, it is required."/
"Sasuke-kun?"
/"Keep running, Sasuke. Keep on running."/
"Sasuke-kun? Sasuke-kun? What's the matter?"
The avenger wrenches himself away from his thoughts almost forcefully, bringing into focus the face that is inching closer to his, etched deep with concern and fear. The pink-framed softness draws nearer, and he averts his eyes.
"Nothing, Sakura. I apologise."
She looks slightly dubious as she sits back, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. With the other, she holds out a small wedge of apple, skewered on a toothpick.
"If you say so." She smiles a bit, strain creasing lines at the corners of her lips. "Here you go."
Sasuke blinks at the piece of fruit, and the kunoichi nudges it further.
"Nice and small."
He blinks again, and this time, framed in the obsidian eyes is a sliver of appreciation. In an instant, her smile is bright and true again; her eyes crinkle encouragingly.
A pair of bandaged hands reaches up slowly, in tandem. One of them cups her palm with a tenderness that strikes them both with its unfamiliarity, and the other eases the fruit from her fingers. The onyx depths that hold her gaze are solemn.
"Thank you." His voice is hoarse, and low.
In return, her smile brightens even further, and it pains him somewhere deep in the black spot where his heart is supposed to be. He cannot bear to look at her anymore; it hurts. Even more than it must hurt her, he thinks, it hurts him.
The apple is tart and sweet on his tongue; he chews slowly, savouring it.
Itachi is dead.
He wants to say the words aloud, taste them on his tongue, let them swirl around along with this fresh, sweet taste in his mouth and let the newness of it shock the air, but he does not want to alarm Sakura.
Itachi is dead.
His brother is where he belongs, among the crows and vultures that are his true kind. His brother is in the past, and he shall stay there. This room, this sunlit place where daisies stand at the bedside and warm open smiles are spread for him and him alone; Itachi does not belong here. His brother tried to strangle him, like a creeper vine suffocating a hapless plant, wring him ragged and bone-white, bereft of love and feeling. Itachi tried to render him weak and limp and yellow like an oxygen-starved leaf; stark and porous like a crumbling skeleton.
But now, his brother is dead, the treacherous vines of his control have retreated, and he has to believe that here, here, it will start; hope can bloom here.
"I have to do a quick check-up on you, okay?" She is peeling another apple, fingers curving around the bulb of a fruit as the knife slides beneath the skin and pares it off. "Just to make sure that all the poison is gone."
He nods in comprehension.
"Aa."
A few minutes later, she sets the plate down on the dresser with the knife, and makes a motion for him to lean back. He complies swiftly, falling into graceful repose against the pillow. Her green eyes study him.
"Ready?"
He nods.
A small hand falls to his forehead with a slow gentleness that belies the crushing strength that she is capable of. Small calluses graze his skin, and he feels a pulsing warmth as her palm begins to glow a smooth emerald. Her chakra seeps beneath his skin, reaching, feeling, probing.
It is a few minutes before she removes her palm with a quick, sharp nod.
"You're all okay." She grins. "I don't know how you do it, Sasuke-kun. Usually, it takes a good two weeks to completely recover from lynthrax(1) poisoning." She laughs, her head tilting to the side. "You're amazing, Sasuke-kun." And there is that smile that makes his heart swell, and it makes a corner of his lips curve up, just so. She chuckles, and extends a finger to tap him playfully on the forehead.
/Itai/
Before common sense can get the better of instinct, his hand is wrapped around her wrist in a vice tight enough to break bones, --
/Onii-saaaaan./
-- and his eyes are Sharingan-red, the black blades agitated into spinning life. He glares at her past a serrated curtain of navy blue, --
/You always do that./
-- anger making his skin tight and hot.
Sakura is giving him an alarmed stare that vacillates between the fingers that have ensnared her wrist in their painful hold, and the eyes that bore into her with murderous intent. She contemplates wresting his hand off of her forcefully, but she doesn't want to harm him. Chakra sizzles in the air, and Sakura knows she has to be careful.
"Sasuke-kun?" she says, slowly, cautiously. "You're hurting me."
The snap back to reality is rapid and fluid; his eyes wheel into obsidian and his hand releases hers instantaneously, retreating to the side of his thigh. It is trembling, she notices as she massages her wrist absently, concern for him clouding her sea-green orbs. He curls the offending hand into a fist, trying to stop the tremors. His eyes are wide; his breathing short and laboured.
"I'm sorry," he ventures, when he can speak without fear of hearing that quiver in his voice. His inflection barely hits a note above a whisper; it is dry and tempered. "I'm so sorry, Sakura."
She makes some reassuring reply, waving it away nonchalantly, but he does not hear it. In his mind, there is a vine pushing up and out of the hard, dry ground, curling forward, toxic-green and menacing. It has a chokehold on his neck. It will not let go.
A/N: (1) – If you haven't already guessed, yes, this is a poison of my own making. No, it does not exist in the real world, or any other place that makes sense.
Alright, so I guess that the basic premise of this fic was to show that, even if he kills him, even if he resolves himself to move on, even if he eventually finds happiness, Itachi shall never truly leave Sasuke alone. He shall always be with his little brother, in gestures, in words, and places. That is this fic's sole purpose. Sorta depressing, I know.
Concrit? Suggestions? The last paragraph sucks like a leech, I know, but I was writing it, and I just wanted the damn fic to end, damn it. Yeah. So. Lame metaphor, whut? O.o (If any of you don't get it – and I fear that number is high – it refers to an earlier metaphor, where Itachi is compared to a creeper vine.) Yeah.
I decided to write the thing in present tense, but it seemed that all though writing it, I kept forgetting that, and I'd slip into past tense, or some other tense, which I then had to go back later and fix up. It was all terribly annoying. I believe I cleaned up all the mistakes; shoot me a line if I didn't.
If anyone wants to take this idea, run with it, and make it into an ongoing story about Sasuke and Sakura's developing relationship, and how he eventually escapes his brother's mental clutches… /thumbs up/ I'm happy for you. Go for it. Me? No. One-shot, yo. --
Will be revamped some time in the future when I don't feel like spitting at it when I see it.