Title: i'm begging you
Summary: She wants to save him, but he's not letting her.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Prompt: one of them trying to get the other one off drugs
Rating: T
A/N: Trigger warning for drug abuse.

"Sakura-chan, hey, it's—it's me. Listen, something happened with Sasuke tonight. He—he overdosed again. We're at the hospital right now, and I think he's okay, but you should know Sakura-chan—he wasn't breathing when I found him. They had to bring him back. Please get here soon. He needs you."

.

.

Like a haunting record of her very worst dreams, the words of Naruto's voicemail replayed in her mind relentlessly. In the seven hours since she'd gotten his message, Sakura hadn't been able to stop her fingers from trembling, clenched in the sheets of Sasuke's cot. She couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if Naruto had never found him—about what would have happened if she'd truly lost him to this stupid drug he'd given himself to all those months ago.

She wasn't prepared to lose him—and she didn't know if she ever would be.

A warm hand closed around her shoulder, then, making her breath hitch. Sakura nearly jumped, shifting her glassy, stinging green eyes to the man at her side.

"He's okay, Sakura-chan. He's alive," he said, like he had so many times before, the smile to his lips saddened and cracked. He was hurting, too, even if he wouldn't admit it. "Please stop worrying so much about what could have happened. It won't do anyone any good, you know? We need to focus on what we can do to help him instead, before…"

He trailed out, swallowing visibly, but Sakura didn't need him to go on. She knew what he meant.

("…before we lose him for good.")

Her hands clenched the sheets tighter, but she nodded anyway, swallowing too. Her gaze shifted back to the love of her life still unconscious on the hospital bed, disheveled as ever with an ashen complexion, his rising chest the only sign of life.

"…I just don't know what we can do anymore, Naruto," she whispered, reaching to touch Sasuke's hand so lovingly. "It's been months that we've been trying to get him to quit, and we never seem to make any progress. If anything he just seems to be getting worse—it's the second time he's overdosed and I'm starting to think he's just trying to—"

The sound of scratched, faint coughing caught both of their attention, and they stiffened, rising to their feet as Sasuke slowly roused with a groan, bleary black eyes blinking open.

"Sasuke-kun—" Sakura exclaimed with relief, taking one of his hands in her own and squeezing firmly. Fresh tears burned, threatening to spill. "Sasuke-kun, I'm so glad you're—"

"W-Water," Sasuke rasped, then, a grimace passing his lips.

"On it," Naruto said, before she could even think to do it herself.

Listening to the sound of his feet padding away, she freed Sasuke's hand to cup his face instead, throat growing unbearably tight as he leaned away, shifting his eyes away from her.

"Please don't do this right now, Sasuke-kun," she whispered, her voice weak and broken. "I almost lost you tonight, do you understand that? You were dead. They brought you back but you were still dead. You have to know how I feel about that, you have to know what it would have done to me."

Because when Itachi died, it broke such a big part of you, and you have to know that if you died, it would be the same for me too, she wanted to say. But he wouldn't handle it well, could never handle anything well when Itachi was mentioned—so she didn't.

Sasuke said nothing to that, body only shuddering lightly from what she suspected were already the beginnings of his withdrawal, eyes still forever fixed on the blank wall to his right.

A wave of desperation washed over her. With great difficulty, she asked, her voice so pleading, so defeated, "Did you want to die, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke remained mute, but she found her answer in the look that he gave her, in the brokenness of his gaze. The silent apology and weighted guilt, the tiredness in the way that he felt. He had lost all hope in whatever the future held for him.

Her heart couldn't take it, twisting in sharp, acute bursts that left her breathless, speechless. She clasped her hand to her mouth, holding in a shuddering sound.

"We'll help you through this, okay?" she managed to say, her voice tight with unshed tears. "Naruto and I will help you get back to your feet, I promise. We're not gonna give up on you." Choking on the last words, she took his lightly shaking hand and brought it up to kiss the back of it, eyes fluttering shut tightly. "You're gonna be okay again."

A tense stillness filled the room, for a moment, before Sasuke finally pulled his hand away, clenching it in the sheets. "I don't want to be okay again," he muttered.

She felt her heart stop.

"Things are exactly how I want them to be."