if you can't hold on, hold on
Chapter 3
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With Naruto gone, the apartment has become quiet.
Sasuke feels awkward and unsettled; he doesn't know how he's supposed to act. The three of them have an established dynamic and routine. With Naruto gone, that balance has been upset. Naruto fills most of the silence, especially these days.
When he said something stupid, Sakura could always be relied upon to share a longsuffering look. Hers being generally more fond than his.
She's quieter these days, but not this quiet. With Naruto gone, there's one less major distraction. He thinks she must be dwelling. He keeps catching her looking out the window, or past the television set.
The best solution he has is to keep her on a schedule. It's what he did, after it happened. So Sasuke conscripts Sakura into his Don't Think About Your Feelings, Only Vengeance regimen.
He wakes up at 5am and kicks her door.
She stumbles into the kitchen, bleary eyed. The first day she'd whispered, "what's going on?" Now she knows to come to the table, dressed.
He hands her a protein bar, takes one for himself and they head out.
They train. They take a water break. Train some more. They spar. They go home.
It's a quiet existence. And it's unnerving because of how unnatural it feels.
Sakura likes to talk. She has so much to say. She should feel comfortable enough to talk. Sasuke isn't equipped for this. He doesn't have the language to console her or explain his issues even to himself.
He hasn't processed his own trauma, he doesn't know how he's supposed to help her with hers.
Even so, he feels closer to her than he ever has. And isn't that sick?
In the past, he's told her and Naruto that they could never understand him or his pain. They hadn't gone through what he had. Now Sakura was the closest anyone could come. And they cannot commiserate. He cannot manage to pass on anything to her. Because nothing makes it easier.
On the third day, as she pants in the dirt after their spar, he asks if she wants to go for ramen.
"Yes," she says, too quick.
Teuchi asks them where Naruto is, Sakura smiles brightly and genuinely at him, "He's off to find our next Hokage! It's a really important mission, but hopefully he'll be back soon." Teuchi responds with pride of course, he likes Naruto a lot. He takes their orders and retreats into the back.
Sasuke is jealous of Naruto. His and Sakura's situations are the same, but it's Naruto who is able to reach out to her and make her feel better. He's always able to tell what she needs; be it a distraction or a shoulder or a blanket fort.
He feels inept. He's never wanted to talk about feelings, but his teammate is hurting. And he has no way of fixing that.
It occurs to him that night, as intrusive thoughts sometimes do, that this whole thing is a distraction from his revenge. He's worrying about Sakura, and his team is living with him. He's concentrating on her pain instead of his. He needs to be single minded if he wants to accomplish his goals.
He physically bats those thoughts away and presses a hand to his forehead. He turns to look at the empty bed by the window and growls. He knows what the right thing to do is.
Tomorrow he'll try harder.
The next day he wakes her up and they train as always. They go home and prepare dinner together. Sasuke asks her some leading questions while frying up the vegetables.
For his efforts, he receives a sweet and wobbly smile.
After dinner they sit on the couch and watch tv, Sakura's woolen blanket spread out over their laps. They fall asleep like that, on opposite sides, feet tangled together in the middle.
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Things never remain simple for long.
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Sakura comes to life in her panic, grabbing Sasuke's hand and dragging him out the door in a way that he would never allow under normal circumstances.
They'd just got word that Kakashi was in the hospital.
In some ways, they always believed their teacher to be invincible. It was so easy to forget that he was anything but.
She needs to keep moving, or else she's going to sink into the earth. Sakura is barely keeping her head above water these days and if something happens to Kakashi… She doesn't know what she'll do.
The hand in hers is dry and warm. She glances back at Sasuke, who doesn't let the worry show quite like she does, but it's there. She squeezes his hand in assurance. He doesn't squeeze back but he nods at her and doesn't shake her off. That's enough.
At the hospital front desk, a paternal nurse with bushy eyebrows and grey streaks at his temples guides them to Kakashi's room in intensive care. It's already crowded. Asuma, Kurenai stand propped up against the wall by the window. Gai occupies a chair by his eternal rival's side.
Sakura gasps and her hands fly to her mouth, "What's wrong with him?"
He doesn't seem that injured, but he's unconscious.
Gai glances back at the other jounins before answering, "He keeps fading in and out. He was under the influence of a very powerful genjutsu. The aftereffects are…concerning."
Kurenai, being the genjutsu expert, averts her eyes as if fearing she'll be caught in one. "It's trying on the mind. None of the medics in the village are equipped to handle a case like this."
"Will he get better?"
Kurenai's heart goes out to the girl. Kakashi told her about Sakura's parents. He asked her for advice that she didn't have. The best she could do was treat a traumatized girl the way he would one of the boys. Having met Sasuke though, she wasn't sure he had the best grasp of that either.
"We're not sure."
"That means no Sakura," Sasuke's cutting interruption startled everyone.
"You don't know-"
"Yes I do," red eyes shifted between all the adults in the room. "Who did this?" If Sasuke knew one thing, it was vengeance.
Kurenai and Gai exchange a look, but Asuma stares at the boy impassively.
"TELL US!"
Sakura winces at the volume and anger in his voice. Gai's immediate instinct is to mitigate that. "Everything's going to be-"
"Don't lie to us!" Sakura surprises them all by siding with
At that very moment a nurse walks in, staring at his clipboard, concentrating deeply, "I'm sorry to say that we're not quite sure how to mitigate the effects of the Magekyou. We haven't had the opportunity to study it before-"
Like an anchor tied to his chest, dropped into the ocean. Sasuke can't breathe. He's being sucked downwards, spiralling into feelings he can't parse. Anger, shock, confusion.
"Why. WHY WAS HE HERE?!"
"Who?" Sakura whispered, worried.
"-I'm so sorry!" the nurse cries.
Asuma pushes off from the wall. At this point, he already knows too much. They'll have to find out this part eventually.
"Your brother is part of an organization called Akatsuki. They were after Naruto."
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"Wait, STOP!" Sakura shouts, running after Sasuke. "You have to think about this!" She catches his arm and holds fast.
"There's no time to waste," he wrenches his arm from her grip. "I have to find my brother."
"But why? What's going on? And if he took out Kakashi-sensei, how are you going to beat him?"
"Shut up!" He doesn't want to hear logic. This is the first word he's heard of his brother in years.
"I will not! You're going to get yourself killed."
Bravery keeps her knees from quaking, determination stops the hyperventilating. She can't lose him. She can't lose him. She grabs his arm again, but this time he shoves her. By now they're a block away from the gate. He pushes her up against a telephone poll. She's taller than him still, so she manages to stay on her toes. Sakura winces, the rusted staples from old flyers dig into her back. There's a dangerous and unhinged look in his Sharingan eyes. "Stay out of my way."
Then he's gone. Too fast for her to ever hope she could catch up.
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Sakura isn't done yet. She is a hurricane, blowing into Kakashi's hospital room. A storm of anger and accusations.
"Who have you sent?!" she demanded, "Who did you send to warn Naruto, to protect him?!"
As the adults around her exchange looks, abdicating responsibility, she wants to scream. They've failed him. More and more, Sakura is noticing the way adults seem to fail them all. She spoke to her social worker about it. Who looked after Naruto his whole life? He never had parents, did he always live alone? Who fed Sasuke after his family died?
Her social worker responded that they only had two allotted sessions left, is she sure she wants to spend them talking about her teammates?
This is fucked up. This is so fucked up.
"Who would we send?" Asuma asks.
"Anyone!"
"We don't know where they are," Kurenai adds, "Besides, Lord Jiraiya is with him and he's a legendary Sannin. There's literally no one better to protect him."
"If it's so hard, why has Sasuke gone off to find them just now?"
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A knock at the door of his hotel room elicits a grown from Naruto.
"Got shut down already Pervy Sage? When are you gonna-" he swings the door open and comes face to face with a man in a black cloak, with red clouds. This would have left the bigger impression, were it not for unnervingly familiar, glaring, red eyes, pining him in place.
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a/n: Been slow on updating because I've been working on another fic at the same time. The other one had a clearer direction in my mind (and has a really fun dynamic to write) so I got a little sidetracked. I've found the thread of this one though! Reviews are always loved and cherished.
PS: You can find me on tumblr as fiercyy! I love getting asks and prompts for oneshots or just to say hey.
- Fi