Somebody
By. Misery's-Toll
Chapter Nineteen: Falling
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, No tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
- "Mad World" (Gary Jules version)
Sakura thinks that maybe she could wake up a million times, and it would still be 3:14 am.
What would humanity give, do you think, to be able to prolong a moment in time? And you throw it away like something despicable.
She's alone. Her father and Ino aren't home, but Sakura finds that she doesn't really care much.
That's the spirit. They're all going to burn someday.
She turns over, roughly, letting out a huff of breath in frustration. She shoves her hand under the pillow, engulfing it in fluffy softness. She forms a fist and pulls it back out.
"Oh," she whispers, "The scarf."
Looking at it now seems odd. Like that was a different lifetime ago. How long has it been, she wonders? November. December. January. February. It's March now, isn't it?
Kakashi. He was so nice to have given this to her. And she never wore it.
You thought maybe he could have been an angel once, didn't you?
Sakura sits up, waiting out her sudden state of vertigo before throwing the scarf around her neck and over her shoulder. Still in the dark, she goes into the closet and fishes through it for a pair of her mother's old pumps.
They can't find you here. In the dark. The monsters in the closet are only there in shadows that don't exist in pure darkness.
Sakura opens the blinds, allowing the light from the streetlamp outside to filter in.
Now you're exposed. Do you think you'll succumb now? Will they take you now, or have they taken you already?
She giggles as she sets her scented candles aflame. They're dusty and they smell of it for the first few moments after being lit, but with the eerie shades they cast across Sakura's face in the mirror, she has to laugh. A girl in teeny shorts, a baggy t-shirt, pumps, and a silk speckled scarf laughs back at her, her skin splotched with dancing candlelight. She looks like something from a book, she thinks. Like the sort of creature a demon would love.
Sakura wakes up again. The analog clock says its somewhere around 4:30. She's sprawled across the sofa (the one her parents, the one her sister had already claimed by committing certain irreversible acts upon it), the candles all around the room having long burned low. She feels queasy.
She doesn't remember getting up, but she remembers falling down, remembers vomiting all over the kitchen floor. She remembers hearing the door slam shut as her father stumbled in half-drunk, laughing a deep, throaty chuckle with a woman probably half his age draped over his arm.
Sakura scrambles to her feet, feeling instantly better, though shivery and sweaty.
"Eww! What the hell is this?" the woman screeches, pointing to Sakura.
The woman is too beautiful, Sakura thinks. She looks like something out of a fairy-tale, only maybe with cheap make-up and barely-there clothes.
Maybe she's playing dress-up, just like you.
No wonder Sakura's father betrayed their mother, she thinks, this woman is just too beautiful.
"She's nothin'. Just another pile of shit on the road," Sakura's father laughs, taking a swig of his beer, "Sakura here'll clean up and then skedaddle on outta here, won't she?"
Someday, he's going to wake up, and he's going to remember who you are.
Sakura nods, though she's aware of and slightly confused by the tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Aww, look! You got her cryin'!" the woman laughs, her voice loud like a car-horn, "Go on! You heard him! Clean up your mess!"
Sakura stares at the drunken couple for a moment.
"No."
She leaves the house, letting the door swing shut behind her.
-=Sasuke=-
Sasuke dreams of abstract demons and tiny infants and floating heads and endless rows of people without faces, clawing at their featureless heads until their blood pools into their hands. Sakura stands in the middle, her smile bright and welcoming. A tiny infant with a mirror of crystalline glass giggles soundlessly as it shows Sakura her reflection, just in time to watch her eyes disappear. And then she's blind. And all Sakura can feel is the never-resting reverberations of the silent laughter of children and demons, and the floating heads are gnawing at her arms and legs until she can no longer stand. She begins to claw at her own non-existent face with stubby hands until her fingernails make their way through rubbery-skin, and eventually she draws blood, and draws in a new face with red-smeared life-paint, with that same bright smile. Tears of blood trickle down her cheeks from beneath drawn-on eyelids.
And then Sasuke is there, wiping away her tears and drinking the blood from her lips with a gentle kiss. And when he pulls away his eyes and lips are a deep, dark red. As gentle waves begin to lap at his consciousness, his wings begin to dissolve, and Sakura's life flows back into her, and she whispers, "Sasuke."
And then he is awake.
Itachi is gone again. The light is off and the television is still on, on the same channel as the night before, showing some sort of commercial. The room smells like old fast food, and a bag of left-over french fries sits sideways on the table next to the remote. There's a note written on a napkin that says, 'Out to buy cigs,' in Itachi's smooth scripture handwriting.
Sasuke stretches his wings and his arms to let out the kinks in his back as he pads over to the small bathroom. He looks in the mirror at his sallow complexion and grease-slicked hair, tracing the circles beneath his eyes with his little finger.
In the shower, Sasuke watches the water splash as it hits the tile on the floor, though the water is dripping from his hair into his eyes and blurring his vision. He thinks about his dream. About Sakura. About his wings. About his wings turning into nubs and about Sakura touching the nubs and about Sakura screaming. And then about Sakura in his dream, clawing at her face until there's nothing left.
["Does it hurt?"]
And then he thinks about kissing Sakura in his dream, his wings dissolving, and restoring her life to her.
He turns off the shower. His cell phone is ringing in the bedroom. He wraps a towel around his waist and runs to pick it up, dripping wetness onto the cigarette-burnt and beer-stained carpet.
"Hey, Sasuke."
"Naruto. What do you want?"
"Nothin'. Just thought I'd catch ya before school to ask about your examination and to give you the 411. You've missed a lot."
"It was fine. They said they might be able to remove the wings."
"R-Remove them? Seriously? That's...great! But are you sure about this? I mean, it's a big decision, and I don't want to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, but like...aren't your wings what basically brought you and Sakura to where you are?"
"Like I said, they might be able to remove them. I can't go back in for another week and then they'd need to do some extensive testing."
"Okay. Well. Anyway, speaking of Sakura-"
"We weren't really speaking of Sakura."
"Well, I mentioned her, so that counts, and really I wanted to let you know that she had a major freak-out yesterday and fainted. It was crazy. I wasn't there for it, but it's all over the school, and Hinata went to see her after she woke up, and apparently Sakura's like...on the verge of some crazy melt-down or something. I dunno. I'm gonna look after her today though, if she shows up."
"Do what you want. I'm going. Bye."
It rains too much here. It's vaguely reminiscent of home, as it was when Sakura had first joined their school. As it was the day her mother died. When had he heard the news that Sakura was in the hospital? Oh yes. Kakashi had announced it. Sakura's father must have called in, or maybe sent an email or something like that. Oh wait, Sakura didn't have a computer. Must have been the phone, then.
But he remembers the worry. No one had heard from or seen Sakura for two days before it was announced that she had gone through the ER. And he remembers the first time he visited her, silent, still, and covered in bandages and patchwork bruises. That was the last day it rained.
But here it doesn't stop raining, except maybe for an hour in the evenings or when it slows to a drizzle sometimes, mid-afternoon. But it pours heavily now, as Sasuke walks to the sub sandwich shop a block away from Itachi's and his rented motel room. He had thought maybe a walk in the rain would do him some good, help clear his thoughts, when he left. Now he feels silly for having left the umbrella behind.
He purchases a ham sandwich and a diet Coke and decides to wait out the heaviest of the rain and eat here. It isn't as though Itachi cares where he is no matter what time of day or night as long as police officers don't show up on the front porch and as long as he isn't late for a flight.
He hates Itachi. He's sure of that. It isn't a quite placeable hate, but he knows it exists. He won't deny that he loves his brother as well. But the hate is there. Perhaps stemming from some sort of estranged jealousy of both his parents loving Itachi instead of him. It seems stupid to him, even now, but it is there anyway. The feeling of resentment. After all, it is apparent that Itachi harnesses no feelings of affection towards him, so expressing any himself would just be a waste of time and dignity.
What would happen if he pulled off his shirt and walked around with his wing-like deformities spread out? Would people gawk and point at him? Would they think he was just another attention-seeking teenager (and he supposes he probably would be to put on a show like that, wings real or not), or would they think there was something honestly wrong with him? He has no past here. No standing.
He has no past here.
He has no past here.
Here, he is normal.
Here, he is a high school boy, eating a sandwich.
Here, he has no love.
["Isn't it weird? We don't know anything about each other."]
Sakura. Sakura. Sa - ku - ra.
Maybe he will call her. One last time before he makes a decision for sure. He could call Naruto who could ask Hinata what Sakura's number is. And then Naruto would tell him that he is obviously whipped, and then Sasuke would call him an idiot and possibly make fun of the blonde's relationship with the timid girl and get Naruto off of his back until he had to remind him at the end that really, he did need Sakura's phone number.
["It's okay. I can wait."]
Annoying.
-=Sakura=-
Sakura's aware that she appears insane to the public. After all, she's wearing pajamas and heels and a scarf and yesterday's make-up is half-melted on her face and she's walking around town. Playing hooky. It's a new concept to her.
Ino would be proud, wouldn't she? Glad to see she's made a monster out of you?
The world is bright and sunny and a little bit hot. Nothing feels right. Where's Ino? How is Gaara? Is Naruto taking good care of Hinata? Is Sasuke thinking about her?
She's hungry and really quite tired, and she figures she'll have to go home soon and clean up last night's vomit, and maybe change her father's sheets, because in his drunken stupors, no one knows how long he'd neglect it. And Sakura doesn't know if she could take the stench of sex emanating from her parent's room when she knows its not a sex of love or even a sex once-were love.
It's poison. It will choke you, if you're not careful.
So she walks home, biding her time though the rumbles of her stomach are borderline painful. Wondering when her father stopped loving her.
-=Sasuke=-
A week passes. Tomorrow he's to return to the clinic with his answer. His answer on what to do with his wings.
He straightens out the worn paper he has written Sakura's phone number on. He's folded and unfolded it several times since he wrote it down five days ago. He feels silly, once again, for not using it earlier. His behaviour is incongruous and even he can't make sense of it anymore.
"Sasuke."
Where her voice is just a breath, his seems deep and startlingly loud in comparison, "Sakura."
She doesn't say anything, but he knows she hasn't hung up; he can hear her breathing. Steady, though a bit too fast for anyone calm.
"Sakura," his brow furrows, as he knows his question will sound stupid and horribly out of character, but he knows no other way to ask, "What do you think of me?"
He can hear her suck in a breath, and the phone crackles like red-hot fire when she exhales. She's silent for a few more moments before finally responding in a tear-drop voice, too thick and too candy-coated to cover her sadness, "What do you mean, Sasuke?"
"What am I to you?" he goes right out and says it. Uchihas aren't intimidated and Uchihas don't care what people think of their character unless they find it unsightly, and even then they don't show that they care. Because caring prevents the asking of questions that need to be asked and prevents the saying of things that need to be said.
She's quiet. The silence carries on, and eventually Sasuke becomes impatient. Becomes worried.
"You...are Sasuke," she says, "My angel."
["Shh...I'm saving the world."]
"Sakura."
"Yes, Sasuke?"
"Maybe...I would have shown them to you. But there's no time. There's not enough time."
["You're the epitome of an angel."]
"Sasuke?" she starts, "You said we could go everywhere."
("We'll go Nowhere and Anywhere and make our way up to Everywhere.")
Her voice is completely wilted, and he wants to brush his hands over the milky-white skin of her throat and have his touch heal her. But his dream is repeating in his head.
"I know."
She hangs up.
-=Sakura=-
Angels don't stick around-
As soon as the phone hits its cradle, Sakura is on the floor, sobbing.
-forever.
It hurts. Something inside her hurts, intangibly, but it hurts so so bad-
FLY ME AWAY FROM FROM FROM FROM FROM
Ino's door opens. Sakura chokes back her tears at the sight of Ino's pedicured toenails directly in front of her.
HERE?
"Get up," Ino's voice is barely comprehendible through her own garbled chokes.
Please
Sakura just stares at Ino's feet through a curtain of tear-dampened hair, incapable of understanding anything.
Come
"I told you to get up," her voice is terse.
Back.
Sakura thinks fleetingly that perhaps this lapse in comprehension will lead to punishment later, but for now she doesn't care, can't think at all.
One thing is clear-
You're stuck here.
Ino pulls Sakura up by the arm and slaps her across the face, "Get a hold of yourself!"
Sakura falls over, half-gasping, half-choking on tears of confusion. But through her sputtering she manages to look up at Ino and actually see her.
"I-Ino," she hiccups, "You're home."
Ino rolls her eyes, "Yeah. Now, since it appears you're not gonna get up, I'll have to get down to your level."
The blonde crouches down to eye-level with Sakura and whispers, "Guess what?"
"Wh-What?"
Ino smirks, "I'm pregnant."
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, 'Mad World', or anything else. Nothing belongs to me. I'm just a lowly fanfic writer.
A/N: Sorry, not as long or interesting as the previous chapter, but I wrote most of this from about 2:00-4:00 am, or other times when I was really tired, so this is pretty much the result of lack of sleep. But I wrote this awhile ago, so I'm nice and fancifully rested. Someone asked me about how many chapters were left, and I'm going to go ahead and estimate eight or nine. Which seems like a long time from now, but its really not, since I've got most of it written already and I'd like to start updating more frequently. And also, someone asked me if Sakura will be having an interlude, and the answer is yes. So you can look forward to that, dearies.
Thank you very much for all of your kind reviews! I appreciate them so much, and I love knowing what you like and dislike in a chapter. So please continue to give me feedback. And don't forget to check out the poll on my profile! ;D
Special thanks to Ira Feye for beta-ing!
-MT