take my hand but leave my heart

Chapter 8

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He's so past repression, it's insane. He's too tired. Too happy. Too full.

He can't sleep at night. He's too angry. Too guilty.

Every three days or so, Sakura comes to him but not since that first night, has he slept in her bed. She's made a habit of slipping through his kitchen window (not the one in the bedroom, that would be too intimate), just after he's finished the dishes, right as he's heading to bed.

She'll appear, already in her pyjamas-

(Patently ridiculous. He pictures her leaping from roof to roof in flannel shorts and a cotton tank with sparkly lettering across the chest. Night cream already rubbed in. Teeth already brushed.)

And her preference is to slip into bed when he's already in it, but her timing is poor.

Sasuke is as reliable as a wound clock; mostly accurate, occasionally a minute or two slow at the end of the day. She should be better at gaging his routine if it matters so much to her that he matter so little.

When she's especially early, she doesn't go to bed first. She waits for him, perfectly composed on his shiny, clean counter; legs swinging and knocking on his kitchen cabinets. Sakura can be so impatient. It makes him want to make the dishes last longer, just to tick her off and see her lips purse in lovely annoyance. Then he feels bad because the only reason she's on his schedule in the first place is because of him. And Saito.

"It was the right choice." She confessed, that first night. "It's what I would have done in your place. And you would have thanked me." He didn't contradict her, because he supposed that was true. "I'm sorry that I'm so angry."

"Don't apologize for the way you feel."

Never again. Not to him.

"Thank you," she whispered in the dark. "For putting Konoha first."

He hadn't. He'd put her first.

Before he thought about the information she could divulge, the treaties she could ruin, the wars she could start; he'd thought about the prospect of Sakura as a person, his friend, being owned, body and soul, by a stranger. By an evil man with cruel intentions. He thought of her taken. He thought of her light being extinguished. He imagined a broken women he'd never again be able to recognize. He thought she'd find a way to kill herself. His heart prematurely broke at the idea of never seeing her again.

Sakura was glad for his loyalty, she saw it as a sign that he'd changed, but he hadn't really.

This village had his fealty. It had his life and his hand at its disposal. He would fight for it. He would die for it.

But above all, he would always love his family the most.

Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi would always come first.

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Some nights, Sasuke holds out hope.

He takes up reading. When the dishes are done, he finds the comfortable spot on his couch (a lump-free spot) and sits back with a novel. He reads and he waits.

Sometimes he falls asleep there.

Sometimes he gives up at 2am.

Sometimes she arrives after only a few minutes and he puts up a big show of how he's busy and he'll be there in a minute and her pout is fantastic and he just wants this to be his life please-

Once, he wakes up at 5am. It's still dark in his living room and his neck has a crick in it from sleeping at a weird angle. His book lays bent on his chest and-

Sakura's asleep, sitting on the floor, her cheek propped against his shoulder, his hand and hers, intertwined on his chest.

It takes forever for his skyrocketing pulse to return to normal.

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He starts to feel a little like her booty call.

They'll go a couple days with little to no contact, then she'll call him up when she's flagging. She'll sleep in his bed, he'll hold her in his arms, and all the while be keenly aware of the lie he is living. Sasuke is in love with a woman who needs his touch to survive.

And it's devastating.

They don't talk anymore, not like they used to. A cloud hangs over their friendship, different from the gentle breeze of-

never enough

but good for now,

someday is almost here.

He misses her.

Sasuke holds her in his arms, knows her warmth, shares her space. He finds pink hairs on his pillows and his sheets smell like a mix of her moisturizer and perfume.

And still, he misses her.

Because it's a grotesque version of their hopes.

Sasuke wonders: what if I was braver?

All the reasons he had for not acting on his feelings, their feelings, seem so stupid now. He's sure he had valid points about the right time, sorting through his many issues, letting them evolve together naturally... but he's hard-pressed to think of them now.

He wasn't ready. What the fuck?!

Stupid. So stupid.

How could he not be ready for her, after all this time. Was he crazy?

If they were already together, perhaps this would have been easy. There would effectively be very little change. They'd already be sharing a bed (he aches, he burns at the thought), touch would be thoughtless. She'd already know the power she holds over him. She'd be able to know and trust his intentions. Knowing her feelings could only make their relationship stronger. They would already belong to each other and maybe-

It's wishful thinking, sure.

But if they were together, maybe he wouldn't have to feel this way-

Sakura has a lot of love in her heart. She's kind and giving. She feels so much and so strongly. He's admired that about her for years. It's the same radiance of soul that he sees in Naruto. They have enough room in their hearts for the whole world.

She expresses her love in healing and protecting. And he can no longer kid himself: physicality.

Intellectually, Sasuke knows that Sakura has dated other people.

He virtually ensured it with his horrible, fucking stupid, idiotic, bullshit letter.

(Surprisingly, Naruto gave him only half so much shit about that as Kakashi and Sai.)

But knowing a thing and physically feeling the effects of the thing are completely different animals.

Sakura has had sex six different nights (10 different times) since she put on the bracelet. Sasuke knows this because he knows what she's feeling. At all times.

Usually, it's just a dull awareness. Is she happy or sad? Is she angry? Usually. But sometimes, she'll show up at his apartment and she'll look at him with those big green eyes and she'll want. That's… an incredible and terrible feeling that he can never ever never act on. It's sweetly painful and it's hard- uh-difficult to resist. Because he feels those things too. And then his wants kind of bleed into hers and they create a feedback loop and he has to work extremely hard (ugh) to pull them back and pick apart whose feelings are whose.

And sometimes, she'll be somewhere else; at the hospital, a bar, the supermarket, home, and he'll feel that twinge. Which is normal. She's a healthy woman in her 20s. Sometimes though, Sakura will act on those feelings.

Sakura, who is strikingly beautiful, but more than that, she's funny, interesting and charming. People like her. She has a way about her. She has no trouble finding enthusiastic partners. And going by the flashes of sights and sounds and feelings Sasuke experiences; extremely lucky partners.

Sometimes, it's a little bit about getting back at him, he thinks. Not that she knows he knows. She can never know. For both their sakes.

If Sakura knew that the feeling of her orgasming under the ministrations of some other man made him lose his mind (for several reasons), he doesn't think she'd be able to look him in the eye ever again.

He wonders, if she knew, would she stop or do it more, out of spite?

He can feel every gasp, every kiss, touches that tingle as if he himself is experiencing it.

It's a hot, sweet, terrible torture.

The woman Sasuke loves is, at this moment, having sex with somebody else.

And he can do something about it, but he never will.

If he wanted, he could make it so that she would never be able to have sex with anyone but him. If he so chose, he could lock her away and keep her to himself. He could erase her sexual desires. If he did it carefully she wouldn't even need to know. That is the terrible power of this curse that he cast on her.

He could never and would never do it.

So instead, he suffers in silence and brings the curse upon himself. His pain should never factor into her decisions. She should be able to live as freely as she did before.

And if on that first night, after he'd told her everything, after he'd told her she wouldn't be able to have children with anyone but him, she'd tested that theory with a complete stranger? Well. His worries are his own. She's a doctor. She knows better. And she hasn't been so foolhardy since.

He never says a word, not because he doesn't love her; on the contrary. He loves her enough that he wants her to be happy more than he wants to be with her.

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Sakura tugs at the hospital gown so there's fabric between her butt and the exam table. Even though there's also paper, irrationally, she always feels like it's not enough.

She looks around the room and sighs. She's flagging a little. She should probably pay Sasuke a visit. The idea makes her shudder, not with cold but with want. She doesn't really need to. She has at least another day before she'll really start to feel the effects, but the truth is, she enjoys being close to him. It's dangerous.

Sakura cannot allow herself to get used to this. It's not forever. She keeps telling herself that. And when all is said and done and she's free, where will they be? She doesn't think they can get back to the place where they were before. And maybe that's all her, but it's a little bit him too.

She's come to doubt herself. Maybe those feelings she thought were finally mutual are just a pipe dream. She misread the signs, she imagined it all. If he loved her, he might not find it so tedious to be in her company so often. He might have been happier at the prospect of her sharing his bed.

And…

Sakura never realized how much there was about herself that Sasuke didn't like. She's sure it's not always on purpose, because it's never comes up, but she keeps getting these little shocks. When she heats up a frozen dinner in the microwave, when she leaves a pile of dishes in the sink (this one was a low level buzz that kept her from sleeping until she stomped out of bed and put everything away) and a dozen other stupid bad habits. Sakura always wished she could know what Sasuke was thinking. Fuck. She wish she could go back to her ignorant bliss.

She scoffs at herself. Sasuke, in love with her (well, maybe not in love but in like? On his way there? Even dreaming, she was never so hopeful as that).

Sasuke disapproves of her drinking, but not of her having sex with other people.

It occurred to her, standing at Yuka's sink, brushing her teeth. What does that mean?

It's hard not to let old insecurities swallow her up, but it makes her feel crazy, like she dreamed up the way he looked at her.

Shizune enters with her file tucked under her arm and sighs at Sakura.

Shizune and Tsunade have always been the only doctors Sakura will allow anywhere near her body. If given the option, she'd do it all herself but that's not allowed and against regulations hrrr mnnnnnyeeeeeh.

She pauses in her internal whining and mimicry of the woman before her, simply out of respect and not-at-all anxiousness at the results in the brown paper packet among her old blood work, injury reports and family history.

"You're fine," Shizune tells her and Sakura sighs in relief. "Completely clean, which I'm sure you knew from your own scans." True, but it's good to have double confirmation. "And you're not pregnant." Good.

She was so stupid, so reckless. She doesn't like the sour bitterness in her heart and lungs, at the back of her throat, but here she is.

"If you have something to say, you should say it." She shouldn't take it out on Shizune.

The older woman bites her lip and lays a hand on her head. "I know you know better. I'm worried about you."

She doesn't know about the bracelet. Sakura doesn't want her to. She hasn't told anyone since that night with Karin. Nobody else needs to get involved and know her sad, pathetic fate: literally shackled to her childhood crush.

"I was being dumb. It was just sex. I dunno." Sakura fidgets with the sanitary paper some more.

Shizune's eyebrows draw together in worry, "Since when is it suddenly 'just sex'?"

It's not that Sakura hasn't always been on the physical side, but before, she was always trying to fall in love. At least at first.

Sakura knew that the best thing for her was to move on, to fall in love and live out her stupid, stunted and delayed adolescence with someone hot, fun and sweet. Except she was never gonna get to have that, was she?

She'd been serious about a boy for 10 years, and there's still no end in sight. There's very little room for other loves but it appears there's plenty of room for stupidity.

"I'm not judging you, you can do what you want. It just doesn't seem… like you."

"No, I was supposed to wait until someone special came along, who wanted to marry me and take care of me and give them my flower." The bitterness in her tone is useless.

"Sakura-"

"Who decides these things?" She wants to make a larger point about feminism and slutshaming and exploration. But really, she's too tired and it's an empty tirade.

Shizune's concern comes from the genuine love of a friend.

"You were never supposed to be or do anything. All that's up to you. But as someone who has known you since you were very young and has loved you for just at long, I want you to know that I'm worried and I want you to take better care of yourself," Shizune wraps her arms around her and it is exactly what she's been needing. "You deserve everything."

Sakura hugs her back just as tight.

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Soon, it's time for another visit to Wind Country. Two weeks in Suna, full of negotiations, state dinners, medical seminars and whatever else she can jam in. She loves it.

Except this time, she can't go.

Because she's shackled to someone else now. She cannot move freely or far.

She wracks her brain for a solution. What if she were to take a lock of his hair? Would that count as having him near? And should she get it under the guise of giving him a haircut?

Sakura makes a face. That's pathetic, even for her.

There has to be a solution because if she's cooped up in this village one more minute she is going to scream.

"You could ask him to come with you."

"...What."

"Or get Hokage-sama to order him to go with you." Karin pushes her glasses further up her nose and gives Sakura a look that tells her she thinks she's being stupid.

From Ino's massively dramatic eye roll, she seems to agree. They've just gotten Ino up to speed on the cuff. She keeps getting distracted by how gorgeous it is. Sakura can't blame her, she's drunk and gets turned on by jewelry, what can you do?

"Knock him unconscious and throw him in your backpack," a not-particularly feasible plan, but she's got the spirit.

Sakura slams her forehead against the table and groans. She can't prove it, but the way Karin pats her head feels sarcastic. "I feel like you're overthinking this."

"I don't understand him at all."

"Not everything can be fixed by solving an equation," Ino preaches.

"Most things can," Sakura grumbles into the chipped tabletop.

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"I don't like doing this," is the first thing he says when she walks through his door because she was too weak (metaphorically, not physically) to stay away. "But I heard what you said."

"What do you mean you heard what I said?! How much did you hear?!"

Sasuke's eyes widen marginally, he coughs to buy himself time, "Some of it."

"Are you always listening or-?!"

"Of course I'm coming with you."

"What?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"...I don't know… you have missions, a routine, you don't like Sand."

"It's rough and it's coarse and-!"

"It gets everywhere; I know."

"..."

What he doesn't tell her is: 'you're more important than all of that'. What he doesn't ask is: 'lean on me'. What he doesn't say is: 'I would do anything for you'.

"It's the simplest answer," he says instead.

"It never occured to me."

"Yamanaka suggested it."

"Sure, but I thought she was kidding." Their eyes meet and slowly, they draw closer together. Without realizing, Sasuke's eyes snap to her lips. They're all he can think about. And suddenly, she pulls back and the spell is broken.

"When do we leave?"

"Day after next."

a/n: I know gang... I know. LISTEN. I TOLD Y'ALL I'D MAKE HIM SUFFER. Do you think I'm done gang?! GUESS WHAT: I ain't!