Okay so I am spoiled by Ao3 now because the formatting when I upload on here now drives me insane. I'm old and cranky now ;_;
Opener is "Special" by Simple Creatures.
comments / notes at the end
VI.
Nothing sinister starts out sober,
Sometimes the chemicals work me over
The things you learn at 4 a.m. —
When do I become who I am?
.
An impeccable internal clock wrests her from sleep — the day promises to be long and lonely.
She takes a moment or three to sink and snuggle deeply into the plush mattress, pressing warm sheets to her nose and inhaling; the heady scents of affection, musk, and skin. Lately, when she steals out of his bed in the early hours, untangling from his lean muscled limbs, a sliver pricks her heart with the split and sting of a papercut. Unfamiliar. It's not like her to do this.
The facsimile of a time before, now with something she's afraid to admit might be —
You can't love him, though. You don't know him, and he doesn't know you.
Everything's cold as she sits on the edge of the bed, willing herself to depart as she has so many times before.
She startles, head whips 'round; the pads of his fingers trail down her spine in a way that always makes her feel seen. As if he's reading sordid and fanciful tales found only in the vertebrae, an archaic divergence of Braille, groping around in the hurricane for the doctrine that defines her.
A blind man trying to see.
"You make it so difficult to start the day," she says. Laughs a little. "It's always hard to leave you."
Purses her lips after this admission, feeling stupid for letting it out. Turning back to him, everything aches, the pains borne not of muscles and bones but something in the sinew and the soul. His sleepy groan. The way his handsome head settles into his hand, propped up by the elbow. Messy dark hair, eyes sharp in the soft dawn light. Well-built planes of chest pried apart by her nails in theory though less in skin, as she continues to search for the gems that were fashioned and pressed to create him.
She's used to so easily taking one's essence and getting the measure, weighing it in her hands. Then she flees, leaving them undone and keeping herself intact. And though he reveals so many things in his gentleness that she's realizing are unusual for him, there's plenty left to be devoured.
Still, she can't tell him what she really sees: The shadows and edges of someone familiar, who told her too much. What man wants to hear they remind a woman of another? She would sound crazy if she tried to explain, even if the sensation of knowing, the creeping of a fated collision, claws at her throat.
She thinks of Ino's knowing looks, pleading her to dig deeper. To confront and process the truth.
In a voice razed with sleep, throaty from the music she forced from him before, its richness drips like drowning. "There's no reason you have to leave, Sakura."
Blushing. She's fucking blushing. It makes her turn away quickly from the bed as if it, and her, are on fire.
"Things to do, people to see. You understand the mundane demands on your days, I'm sure."
"Hmm, used to. That's not the case anymore."
"Well," she says, plucking clothes from her growing pile in the corner of his room, "I at least need to check on the apartment I still pay for. Make sure it hasn't burned down. Then errands, a bit of this, a bit of that."
He grunts at her cheery ambiguity, but doesn't press. Fully dressed, she turns around and smiles in an attempt to stretch joy over the bones of her face. It's futile but passable, and still it's not his place to ask.
"Are you returning this time?"
His question forces a moment's pause. Snatching up the shopping bag containing her new dress, she turns to march out of his room with all the dignity she can muster —
until she touches her fingers to her lips and sends a kiss his way before ducking out.
As every morning, he folds his arms behind his head, letting the warmth of her ebb and dissipate from the sheets, his room, his heart. He swallows, grimacing at the sensitive scraping sensation in his throat, the aftermath of overuse and his vulnerable stupidity. The worst part, of course, is the merciless mocking he's been receiving from his well-meaning friend. And also his situation from the other night, which Naruto so kindly refers to as freaking out.
Lying in thought as the sun climbs in its daily arc. Then, he sits up and runs hands through his hair, craving a shower and coffee and her skin. Pulling himself out of bed, he finds himself in front of the pile of her clothes that's taken on a life of its own, fabric in mayhem. Taking a shirt off the top of it, he shakes it out and checks its scent, then crosses to his closet and after contemplation, moves some of his own clothes to one end of it to create a new space.
As always, everything echoes in an apt metaphor.
.
.
.
Swipes her transit pass and breezes through the turnstile without a hiccup. It's appreciated when the train arrives timely and with room, and she settles into a seat against the window for the first leg of her city journey.
She's lived in a variety of places, and grew up in a town with too few people who all knew too much. Going to her apartment means a trip with two transfers, and she muses on the different ways people knit their lives into being, how what's good for one may not be for another. As the subway stations transition to elevated stops running flush and parallel with the downtown streets, her mind wanders to the upcoming event and the revelations Ino's arrival has sifted from her unconscious.
Lost in thought as she leaves the train car, taking a set of stairs so familiar that the rhythm of her feet on them always echoes the same. To the next line, heading west.
It seems that one's world can be small even as large and sweeping as populations themselves are. From her long-standing friendship she's gleaned and the knowledge absorbed to survive, still there are unspoken stories and understandings so lost on her.
(I'm certain he's an Uchiha.
Right, I think he said that to me the night we met. I don't see what's relevant about it, Ino. It's probably a common name.
It is, but only because there are so many of them. The family is like a web — they have hands in everything.)
Sakura's deduced some hierarchy of family names, an inborn knowledge children within them grow up acutely aware of, and in the case of those positioned on the collar, the outer ring, they know always, socially, where they stand. As a girl from a tiny place on the wrong side of the tracks
as was flung at her, like a slap, from a man brimming with arrogance and a sour gaze
none of it meant much until she tested into her new school, clawing her way out of a dusty and insular community, emerging into a world with brand new rules. More than that, the lifting of the curtain on society and the people who command its orchestrations. Lucky to be a girl of sharp mind and quick processing because the demands for those who seek greatness are great in themselves.
But in the end she failed, flew too close to the sun, or perhaps delved too deeply into the dark.
Still wonders if her failures and tragedies were all her own doing, or the machinations of a hateful man, one who held the world. Would she ever know?
The disembodied train voice announces her stop, and she blinks herself out of a daze, leaping for the door.
Walking in her neighborhood is a fraught and tense affair; if it remains at the level of catcalls and sneers she considers it of no consequence. Rarely has it escalated, and good thing, as these are known and stained city blocks that officers no matter what they pantomime hesitate to tread.
The familiar man lingers on the corner, always with his eyes on a daily terror Sakura's not able to see.
She removes her shoes in the entryway, hoping it's early enough to avoid speaking with her roommates in name only. Not quite friends by her own admission and fault, with her tendency to avoid putting down roots.
Creeping through the kitchen, she jumps and curses as the light flicks on.
"Where have you been?"
The woman and her shock of red hair seem to swallow everything else in the drab kitchen. With her arms folded and glasses slipping to the edge of her nose, clad in her usual bizarre attire, she has the air of an aggressive and nosy professor combined with the ragged, prickly edge of a moonlighting drummer in a now-defunct band.
"I told you, Karin," Sakura sighs, crossing to the fridge and peering inside, "I work at weird times, and sometimes travel. Everything's paid, right? I told you not to worry about me."
"I'm not worried," Karin responds, affronted. "I'm nosy. Big difference."
"With roommates like this, who needs enemies?" With his lopsided, mildly toothy grin, a man with white hair strolls in, with another one of intimidating height and soft footfalls coming in closely behind. "As long as the lights are on, I don't give a shit where she goes."
Sakura winces as Karin's hand connects with his face, the sharp crackle of air and skin on skin bursting in the previously quiet kitchen.
"Suigetsu, you're barely civil." With a gentle smile, the big man inclines his head to Sakura. "Glad you're staying safe, at least. Wherever you go."
Juugo always has a way of being kind in a way that gives her a bout of heartburn, paired with eyes that don't seem to take her excuses and brush-offs at face value. Eyes on the linoleum, she returns the small upturn of the lips and shuts the fridge.
Down the hallway with the backdrop of Karin and Suigetsu's bickering in her ears. Digging for her keys, she locates the one that unlocks the door to her space.
Untouched, colorless, always the same. The functional essentials of a bed and a desk, and curtains drawn against its own depression. Tossing her bags on the mattress, she stands in the dark and considers the dank and dusty smell, the stillness. The hairs on her arms prickle with a cold sweat —
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Juugo says. Pauses, eyes always seeking, digging into her. Extending a sheaf of mail in his large hand, hovering, aloft. "Figured I'd keep these for you in the same place. And away from them."
A rush of affection for someone who extends her grace as a principle of his compass and never attaches too many questions. In return she's careful not to accept too much, not keen to take more than she can give, which feels like so little. Accepting the mail, he leaves her to herself without another word.
Flipping through it, none of it seems important, junky and irrelevant. After all, it's hard to follow constantly changing addresses of someone who never wants to be found. Tossing it aside as well, she opens her closet and kneels, moving things aside to locate a nondescript shoebox. Leans back on her haunches as if contemplating a fraught choice. With slightly shaking hands, she pulls it to her and removes the lid with the tentative and aversive movements of unwrapping an infected wound. Stares at the items inside, collected in magpie fits in the harried moments she chooses to leave each chapter of her life; vivid and edged memories to cut her fingers and lips on.
She sits
and sits
and when she's done, she wraps it all up exactly as before, hands moving through her own belongings as a ghost. Ensuring no one can return later to see the afterimages.
.
.
.
She's still thinking about the papers in the box as she gives a small smile through the window to her companion and settles the headphones around her neck in preparation; her night's just begun.
As the predetermined music sets play and eventually give way to the improvisatory mixes courtesy of the resident DJ, the questions tumble over one another in an endless unconnected bubble of thought, entwined as snakes. The prospect of an evening around people so unfamiliar and of a certain stature, an invisible web she's had to suss out in the way of an interloper, is anxiety-inducing at best and nauseating at worst. If her conversation with the man she now knows is Neji Hyuuga is any indication, she'll be in for an excruciating evening of being on display.
But this is how men such as him navigate the world — others' discomfort is unimportant, their concerns trivial, inconsequential because all the space belongs to the powerful. The seen.
Twilight creeps.
Her mind rebukes, of course, the idea that this Uchiha Sasuke could be similar. She knows the markers, however, of trauma and wealth. Indicated in large part because he never discusses it even when making overt gestures, ah, like the hotel suite. Head spinning at the implications, which seems silly on its face considering the wanton whatever-it-is they've been participating in with enthusiasm. No, it's the idea of an expensive gesture solely for her comfort, to spend time with her, an extension of something that checks the box of uncomfortable but also fills an indulgent desire.
And in moments the way he turns his eyes on her, the way he drinks her in to slake an endless thirst, is a faulty and weak imprint of every man before and she's sure, in the marrow of her bones, every single one that will follow.
The thought of him pricks gooseflesh at the base of her neck, sweeping against each vertebrae in legato lyrical phrases. A sense of impending doom and breathless danger and frenzied affection coalescing as one.
"But if it's proven to be a biochemical reaction," the man on the line says, pulling Sakura back to the conversation, "and the brain is being flooded with substances causing someone to not only fall in love, but essentially bewitch them while around this new individual, it's no different than a powerful addiction to the object of your affection. And if we're now foraying into using this word, 'addiction,' how do we examine the truthfulness of chemicals run amok?"
Sakura shakes her head. "All of those things eventually normalize," she insists. "Let's not forget that this is an initial stage of attraction and what begins as passion may not persist as that. There's an arc to this journey — it's true in every type of relationship."
"Ah, you find me cynical. I can tell."
Smiling to herself, she says, "A bit, maybe, Kabuto."
"Let's follow this thread."
Where has she heard that before? Often a sounding board and many times a therapist, it isn't unusual for topics to derail in these ways, exploring scattershot threads to follow, ideas wandering as lost lambs heading for the end of the night slaughter.
"Sure, if you'd like. Chemistry doesn't mean we should view it only in a scientific lens. That can be an excuse to view it in an emotionally detached way. The honeymoon period of any bond, whether it's the beginning of a friendship or someone new and special you've met, of course involves strong feelings. And sure, it's all aided and abetted by the best of chemicals, but that doesn't undermine any of what it is."
"Perhaps this is where we disagree: How do we unravel where reality begins and the brain's illusion ends? Can you or I trust this process? Should we? When the origin of something that should be taken, I imagine, seriously, like love, is rooted in a runaway operation, how do we parse that?"
"It's a good question. I do agree there," Sakura interrupts, pointing at nothing in the air, even though Kabuto isn't able to see her. "It begins like a spark, and fire's chaotic. But some manage to tame it into something for a lifetime."
"I suppose none of us can confirm the lifetime part, admittedly," Kabuto says. "Your use of the word chaotic is interesting, perhaps quite personal to you?"
"We're always on borrowed time, Kabuto," she warns, using his name as punctuation in close.
He chuckles, a unique blend of arrogance and deference. "Young lady," he says, "changing tack here, do you believe love can exist in this way, from a person in pursuit of non-human entities?"
"If this becomes a discussion of something untoward—"
"I'm thinking of abstract concepts, or at the very least complex ones — not animals, if you were worried."
"I was, in fact; we've been down that road before at 2:00 a.m., and it's a strange one."
"I'll offer myself up as a specimen, then. I grew up as an orphan without many strong bonds, and I feel that few people or their emotions offer a use for me. Over the years the only love that has made any sense for me is twofold: First, a desire to serve another in a useful capacity, devoted but decidedly unromantic. Second, the love of the field of medicine." She can almost hear him raising a palm in a careless shrug, a considered nonchalance that's anything but. Pantomime performance. Facing him in person would be difficult; something about him makes her bristle, clench her teeth. "These are things that make life worth living to me; most people have erratic emotions and motives."
"It's respectable, but unusual. Not that there isn't a precedent. If we think of famous scientists, artists, and individuals knowledgeable and devoted to their craft, it's a different type of fulfillment involved. And many of them did have poor relationships and lives, multiple wives for instance. Addiction."
"Aptly said, Sakura. Another instance that I'd say you may have your own void in need of exploration."
Pursing her lips, her response comes with a bite. "Another swing and miss, Kabuto."
Again, she feels him shrug, retreat from the line. Voice dripping slimy and conciliatory as he snarks, "I suppose I did offer myself up, and not you, after all."
"I think it's time for the next," she says, infusing civil kindness in the shift. "Looks like you've begun quite the conversation, because lines are lighting up. Have a good night."
Click.
Her companion in the booth holds up a hand with two fingers — two minutes, 120 seconds, a breather. Removing her headphones from around her neck, she stands and stretches. Crossing the room, she opens the door and pokes her head over the threshold.
"You got a message," he says. "A strange man called with a rebuttal to the last guy's arguments. Some rant about how art is the highest form of affection and he had no vision . . . really weird."
"Huh. I guess he wasn't comfortable speaking on the show?"
Raising his eyebrows, he runs a hand through his messy hair and smiles. Approaching his mid-thirties and always laboring under a stoic but world-weary demeanor, his slight detachment always rings as the conscientious but awkward treatment from a father who's never home to tuck in his children. "He used the word explosion, so I didn't find him particularly stable."
Sakura flashes a smile. "I'm back on in a second. Thanks for the interception."
Waving a blithe hand, he gives her a chuckle — again so much like a well-meaning father. A pang of guilt, the origin of which she's never sure of, as if he can see through the meticulous cosmetic visage prepared for later, can spot the glitter still lingering in the microscopic creases of her skin. As if he knows what's buried at the bottom of her bag and has an inkling of her messy tryst and possibly destructive habits.
When she takes her place at the desk, settles the headphones onto her ears and gives him a thumbs-up, her foot brushes against the daybag propped underneath.
Click.
"And we're back on this chilly Thursday evening, discussing the interplay of biology in the complex concept of love. Before we were specifically talking about how much of this process is truly in our control, and the different types of bonds that can form that don't meet expectations of our classic ideas of romance. Kabuto, if you're still listening — someone felt that art should be placed on the shelf over medicine. Not sure how you would feel about that! So we're on to the next . . ."
Pausing for a moment, she waits for her companion to send over the new caller; meeting eyes through the glass, he does so with a careless shrug, as if saying, Sure, why not?
A flash of irritation: Stoic but waffling, an annoying combination. Sakura's convinced he has a daughter at home he's never learned how to communicate with; he strikes her as single-dad, not much extended family, sheepish in the face of attitude. She's unable to deny that he has a certain sturdiness he brings to long nights; if she wasn't so sure he would twist in knots at the mere hint of impropriety, she could see him asking after her sleep habits and vegetable servings. She, a prickly young woman and he, an awkward parent.
But she wishes — oh, she wishes he hadn't let this call through, that his protective sense piqued just once at the correct juncture.
"Pardon, I didn't catch your name," Sakura says. Listening to the strange breathing on the other side of the line. Rolling her eyes to her call screener, he puts his hands together and dips his head in apology.
It continues, different and yet similar from a behavior before. Sasuke? She's not so sure she's willing to gamble on it though, professionalism notwithstanding. A rattle, a cadence unknown. Even silence has its own sound.
"Hello?"
"I'm here."
In instinct her fingers curl into fists, green fingernails digging into the skin of her palms. Sharp. It distracts her from the way she yearns to kick her chair back and run. Perhaps it's painted all over her face in vivid color, a portrait, all shadows and deep rivulets and frozen fear, dimly aware of eyes on her.
"S-sorry about that. Poor connection, maybe." A smooth response she pours an easy smile into, but it doesn't reach her eyes.
"No, I don't think so. I promise I'm not here to scare you, though."
A richness, a distinct and familiar quality, a sinister veneer of kindness — does he hear the falter in her own? Is she crazy to feel ready to run?
Chancing a throaty laugh, she says, "I should hope not. Seems like strangers in the night enjoy talking about love and loneliness. At least it always ends up that way."
The man on the phone makes a dulcet noise of amusement, triggering a shiver that, while embodying the same tone she's so used to from the man with which she spends most (lately, too many) nights, has something else. A quality that's cold and dead where Sasuke's reflects the opposite. Sakura thinks of resting a finger on the button and letting it slip, disconnecting from this, it , severing the connection.
"I'm sure you've heard before of what that says about you."
Biting her lip, she struggles not to imbue a response with the same sharpness. "True; the woes of the host! But the show isn't about me — it's about all of you."
"Tell me," he says, breezing past her conciliatory words, "do you think that people are locked in by their destiny? Before, the orphan and his self-admitted devotion to something beyond? Incapable of regular relationships or just caught in a web of something else's choosing?"
"I . . . like to think that we have more choice than that."
"Is that what you tell yourself? That you choose these things, and each fork in the road is a decision you make, not one made for you? That you're not caught in something larger than yourself, a web you stumbled into?"
It has a question underneath.
"Let me elaborate," he continues. Bitterness with a jovial veneer: Playacting. "Do you think meetings and falling in love are coincidences, occurrences, or divine intervention?"
Sakura's laugh is genuine this time, bold. A touch of amusement. "These sound like stories more than they sound like evidence! They're not new ideas, of course: Literature in particular discusses all of these thematic possibilities, romantic but not well-supported in reality."
"I wonder," he says, unctuous. Sets her stomach roiling, like he's in the room.
"Sure, there are events that happen with no true explanation. None rooted in evidence, anyway, unlike the things we were discussing earlier." Sakura's throat dries out at the close, and she swallows.
"'Chaste and temperate people — not of their own will — fall in love, badly.' You probably know that one, as well-read as you are."
The copy of her book, given as a gift, sits on the bedside table in a room across the city in the apartment of the boy in love that handed it to her — the man that touches her like fire. She senses a string visible only in the light, bonding her to him, a tripwire strung by fate.
"Funny that it's on the theme of ruining a house, a family name. That sounds so old-fashioned, doesn't it?"
Goading her with the details he knows. She's shaking for reasons she can't understand, a quaking in the marrow.
Lowering his voice an octave, it claws like the night.
"Girl," he hisses, "do you believe in curses?"
Click.
She gasps, gulping in air as if breaking the surface of water. Vision swimming, she realizes it wasn't her who hit the disconnect. As he shoves back his chair and opens the door, she gropes for her own controls and hears herself rattle off something about how unfortunately, the connection was lost, and they'll be cutting to the music early.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let him come through. What a strange man," he says. Not coming too close, but after a moment he kneels down to her height. "Are you all right, Sakura? You look . . ."
"Fine." Regretting the curtness. Inhaling and exhaling in a slow, measured breath, she flashes another thin smile. "I'm okay. Promise. It just . . . really caught me off guard. People are always odd but he was just plain creepy."
Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes, she imagines drowning in the bursting color. When she refocuses, her night partner has a glass of water and a bag of —
"Walnuts?" she asks. "Why walnuts?"
Shrugs. "They're my favorite. You look pale; eat something."
Acquiescing, she takes a few and chews them without tasting, lost in the accusing tones of a voice black as oily pitch.
.
.
.
This.
This is what she never used to do.
It's not the activity itself — it's the tang of too many gimlets and the glitter that she drags from floor to floor, the stardust sparkles taking refuge in her hair and skin. The press of bodies that she doesn't know, will never know, the painful pressure valve release. If she closes her eyes and succumbs to the spin, the sensation of loosening from orbit and going on the float, she manages to pretend she doesn't even know herself.
All she can think of is home. What and where is that? It's certainly not here, where her beautiful shoes have difficulty parting ways from the sticky floor. It's not the apartment in a neighborhood full of people starving and ill, nor her roommates that pass her most often as ships in the night; not anywhere.
The only thing that makes sense is her lovely, delinquent chemical adventure, yet it will be sabotaged like everything else.
Sakura thinks of his eyes, his hands, his skin. All of it could be here if she asked; she's sure he would put up with so many things, if she asked.
Instead she brushes the skin and sweat of strangers, a roiling mass of bodies supporting one another as an ocean wave, losing themselves in emotions larger than what one can feel alone.
Her knees tremble; plagued by head spins, this is preferable to thinking.
When she takes a seat on a couch and settles into the cushion, one arm parallel, propped across the back, she rolls her ankle in a circular stretch. Pithy, ignorable. It's nothing compared to how a heart carries pain, such a different animal.
Someone emerges from the alternating lights and gloom, placing a napkin on the low table in front of her and setting a drink, the same she's been having all night, all morning. Questioning him with her eyes, he nods his chin behind her and melts away into the noise.
As she turns her head, a hand comes down on hers, the one resting on the back of the couch, and the force of it knives her gut, right under the ribs.
"Look straight ahead."
Twisting angrily, she pulls; whoever it is digs the heel of his hand into her knuckles. Unable to see his face, she opens her mouth until his other hand settles on her shoulder, draping itself in a way that to anyone else would appear friendly, at worst a bit salacious.
"Let go of me."
"Will you use those wild hands on me, girl?"
"What do you think?"
The grip on her shoulder tightens. Desperately wanting to flail, fight, but his unspoken threat is no bluff. The twisting sensation vibrates and transforms into nausea, a lump in her throat. Unless there's someone in that mass of bodies tonight that feels like being a hero, she's stuck staring straight ahead.
"That's quite a heartbeat. Nervous, I bet."
"Who are you?"
"You can't tell? We just spoke." He sighs with a hint of amusement. "You're familiar with so many of us now, this should be easy for you."
Do you believe in curses, girl?
"Don't know what you're talking about." A lie, and not a very good one. Sakura swallows hard.
"Not a very good liar. What is it with you and this family?"
She forces out a dark laugh. "Maybe you're cursed."
"I'd argue we've been cursed by you. I'm here to tell you to stop. You're smart enough to let this go, like you let go of everything else. Do what you do — crawl back to who you were."
"I don't care about any of you." Eyes flashing, speaking through a fake smile. "I never started it; I was a child! And not that it's your business, but I've moved on to something new."
His chuckle is foreboding, makes her feel sick. "Maybe you're not so bright, then. You can't even see it. That it's something old, something blue. Is that how that silly rhyme goes?"
"If we're going to be here a while, could I at least have the drink you so kindly brought me?"
"You're a spitfire, aren't you?" he hisses, tightening his grip. Hot breath ruffling locks of her hair. "You're mouthy."
"And I'll scream, too." True to form, her voice is a spit and she shrugs him off her shoulder. Surprisingly, he lets her go.
A pause, a deafening silence. She feels him begin to move away, and like the waiter she knows without seeing him that he's melting away into the dark. Waiting for his inevitable departing words, but they never come.
She waits a full minute before leaping up and bolting across the dance floor.
Down a hallway, pressed with bodies and couples and partners lost in drunken and drugged hazes. Hot, chaotic. Using her elbows to push them aside to fight to the back door. Lets her full weight fall into the door and swings it open into the alley, and it takes her a while to realize the alarms bursting against the muted music is her doing. Too disassociated, too tipsy.
Crouching, leaning against the brick, she fumbles with the phone due to trembling, going right for the number out of a blurry list of them — none saved. All starting with a mishmash of area codes from the bonds she never takes with her. Except she knows the only one that matters.
She swallows a sob lingering in her throat. The emergency alarms tune in and out like a touchy radio.
"What's wrong?"
Relief — his voice brings nothing but. Forgetting her own rules, she tries to tamp the fear encircling everything she wants to say.
"Can you come?" Feeling pathetic, scared.
"Tell me where you are, Sakura."
Her mind on autopilot saves her, rattling off the address without pause like someone else speaking.
"I'm coming. Don't move from where you are unless it's dangerous."
Silence strings between them, all the words that need to be said.
"Did I wake you?" Sakura asks quietly.
She imagines him shrugging, the way he looks away in lieu of focusing on her, like she's too bright and he's too shy. Or perhaps she'll see the shadows.
"I wasn't asleep. Frankly, I don't sleep well at all. Lately, it's been better." Pauses again, inhaling, exhaling. "Something about that guy on your show bothered me. When you didn't return, I didn't want to assume — well, you go where you go."
But Sakura hears in his voice how much he hates it. An admonition and ache all in one, the brusque admission that offers a glimpse of his heart.
"Sasuke—"
"Just stay there. You'll be all right until I come." She can almost hear what for him is as close to a smile as he gets. "You're not a weak woman, after all. So hold on."
The sensation of a rope around the neck loosens slightly, retreating. Readjusting on her haunches, she stares up at the stars, words surfacing and drowning in her addled daze
you have ruined her and me and all this house
"Sakura?"
Even in her precarious place, the burning in her chest and the wobbling in her legs, his voice still scatters gooseflesh on her hot, glittered skin.
"What did you say?" he asks sharply. "You're fading. Keep yourself together."
"Nothing," she murmurs. "I'll see you soon."
Disconnecting the call, she presses the phone against her head, the fingers of her other hand weaving through her hair and tugging it over her face.
This is how Sasuke finds her, still crouching against the brick alley wall, bent and frozen. A grumpy security guard stands a couple of feet away from the open door, scowling at him as if her state is his doing.
"Tried to get your girl to sit inside — she's not talkin' much."
Wrapping his coat around her, she listens to his instructions as in a dream, without reaction or pause. With a dismissive wave toward the guard, he whisks her away and gets a shrug in response.
To the curb, in the car. The grip on her face is tighter than he means, the worry in his voice rougher than he intends; it always comes back, the sovereignty of his name, the resources he invokes as he wishes and when it suits him, hates and indulges. Intensity and arrogance and obsessive love bred in his bones.
But he swipes a gentle thumb underneath her eye, stardust and tears, and somehow even this doesn't look bad on her. Even this way, she's divine, inhuman, special underneath whatever pressure made her — a diamond.
"Sasuke."
Her voice is the throaty scrape of sandpaper, leading him off the path and into the water, drowning and purifying but for a man like him, it's always doomed to be one and the same.
"Thank you."
So, the guest that left me crazy beautiful reviews - ahh I barely have words. I love that you picked up on all the little things I wanted to entangle with canon a bit, like a remix of the people they are in the original story. Some characters will come back again but admittedly some are just there are for cameos to flesh out the world itself - like some characters that showed up in this chapter too.
Any guest you are totally welcome to leave one with a name so I can respond directly back to you, I'm happy to talk I just feel bad if I mix up a bunch of people awkwardly, even on the internet, ya know?
Thanks also to Alaxia and TeenageCrisis for reviews as well :)