Sakura was guided by Sasuke's screams of agony. She finally found him at the base of a tree, curled up, holding his curse seal. Idiot. Using it when he was already suffering from withdrawal…without a thought, she knelt by him to press a hand to his forehead. He was burning up. Automatically, she started healing him.
He lashed out suddenly, his palm backhanding her across the face. "Don't touch me," he hissed. "It hurts."
"Yeah? Well on the bright side, it will stop hurting if you're dead," Sakura countered, healing her bruise quickly and moving to hold Sasuke down with one hand, heal him with the other. Sasuke shook beneath her hand. "You have to make the curse marks go away," she said, noting they had retreated to half his body.
"I just tried to kill you," he said, obviously ignoring her. "So what the fuck are you doing here? Itachi can't do anything without a hand."
"I can reattach Itachi's hand, but you're going to die if you don't take"—she rummaged in her pack—"these."
"Why should I trust whatever pills you're going to give me?"
"The alternative is death, idiot!" She growled. "These will flush your system. Take one a day for a week and it will flush your system of the drugs and steroids. You won't be attached to Orochimaru anymore." Her eyes burned into him. "Do you understand? He won't have control over you anymore. Isn't that what you want? To not be his puppet?" Angry, she accidentally nudged his ankle and he let out a hiss of pain. Sakura looked down and, exasperated, started healing it.
"Why are you helping me?" Sasuke rasped.
Sakura didn't answer for about five minutes and Sasuke thought she'd gone deaf until she said, "Sasuke, this is going to sound strange, but it's pretty obvious that our fates are intertwined. We're going to keep bumping into each other time and time again. Maybe you hate me, maybe you don't, but until one of us dies we'll have to deal with each other. And I don't want to see you dead, not after everything Team 7 went through, not after everything you still owe me."
"I don't owe you anything," Sasuke snorted. "I don't want any of this, so you can't just put me in your debt like that!"
"Suuure I can't," said Sakura. "Well, your ankle is healed. Take the damn pills if you want to be free. One a day, no more." She stood, dusting herself off and running a bloody hand through her even dirtier hair. "Guess I'll see you around, Sasuke." Then she left him there, sitting against a tree in agony, staring at the items she'd left for him in bewilderment.
Once he was sure she was gone, Sasuke reached over and took a pill.
Itachi had landed about a kilometer away, his illness having gotten the better of him for a time. Sasuke wasn't ready for the final fight. Losing his hand was an…unexpected complication, but Itachi couldn't bring himself to worry. Some intuition told him to stay still and help would come. Help from whom, though? Haruno had fallen too far to still be alive, unless somebody had caught her, which only an immensely skilled ninja could do at that height, speed and weight.
He raised the stub where his arm used to be, examining the first real injury he'd gotten in quite a while.
Sasuke hadn't been standing still, but he had to improve faster. Otherwise the illness would take him first.
If Haruno were alive, she would question him a lot about his exact motives, so it was probably for the best that she was dead. If he could go back and search for the hand, perhaps he would be able to ask Kakuzu for some help, but at the moment he wasn't feeling up to such a walk. There was still the possibility of Sasuke coming after him—why had he stopped, anyway?
Itachi stroked a wounded Kurasu's feathered back and whispered out, "I'm sorry you were hurt. Go back if you please. I can find my way back on my own."
Kurasu grumbled back, "No way, Ita-chan. I finally get to see some action in my long life. I'll protect you until help comes, then I'll go get my wing repaired."
Five minutes later there was a rustling noise in the trees. Itachi grabbed a kunai from his pouch at lightning speed and threw it blindly at the noise.
There was a clank as it was deflected and Haruno walked into the clearing, covered in blood but looking fairly healthy. "There you are," she groused. "Stupid masking your chakra signature. What if I didn't find you? The longer we wait the less the chance of a successful reattachment!"
"A successful…?" Itachi wondered.
Haruno reached into her pouch and pulled out…his hand. Well, that was gruesome, but he wasn't complaining. "You held onto it?"
"Yes, and I lowered the temperature so that it's been preserved well enough. Okay, this will be painful. Some may call it excruciating, but hell, you're Uchiha Itachi, you can deal with a bit of a sting. Lay down and put out your arm." Haruno rolled out some plastic and Itachi did as she ordered with difficulty, his joints stiff from the sharingan recoil.
When, without warning, Haruno touched the stub and pain shot through his arm, Itachi swore and had a hard time not throwing her off. But Haruno apologetically continued, admitting, "I don't have any painkillers on me, though those should be standards for this operation. I need you to relax, though. The more you relax the easier this will be, so it'll not take as much time."
After a while more, she said, "I'm going to put a bit of wood in your mouth so you don't bite your tongue off. I'm numbing the area as best I can, but this is still going to hurt." Itachi felt his chapped lips gently moved apart, and a bit of wood forced in between his teeth. He'd been through worse pain, he reasoned. He forced himself not to look down at the hand. "Okay! Uh, medical procedure says I should could down from five and do it on one. So…five…four…three…"
Itachi damn near bit THROUGH the wood as she did something that sent shocks of pain through his whole body, three seconds before she said she would. The word bitch came to mind—usually Itachi wasn't one for profanities, but this one applied.
Of course in hindsight it made sense—he'd be more relaxed that way—but still, Itachi didn't appreciate being tricked.
It took about five more minutes of random poking and twitching until Haruno removed the wood from his mouth. Her hands were slippery with blood, and she dried them on the nearest tree. "Right then," Haruno said almost cheerfully. "You're blood type AB, did you know that? Just like Sasuke."
Itachi ignored her and looked down at his hand. It was heavily bandaged, but it all seemed to be in one piece.
"One more test," said the medic. She pulled out a senbon and poked each finger with it. When Itachi winced, she seemed satisfied. "Don't try and move that hand for at least a day. I've done some good work, but you don't just lose a hand and gain it right back. Try not to break this wrist; it will be debilitating."
She moved in a professional matter, helping Itachi off the plastic.
"Where's Sasuke?" Itachi bit out.
"He's long gone by now, I hope," Haruno said—then seemed to catch herself. "That is, I uh, couldn't catch him."
But now Itachi was too interested. "You once had feelings for him. That much is clear from the way you've reacted to every genjutsu I've thrown at you. Does this affection remain? Are you going to jeopardize my plans?"
Haruno stilled, then relaxed and started going through his bag, clearly looking for his medicine, which she had been modifying lately. "It would be very irresponsible of me to love somebody who has hurt me so many times. Relax, Uchiha-san. I'm very professional. I got out of your way when you told me to."
"But you care about him—otherwise, you would not have tried to stop the fight. Usually you do not interfere with my kills."
The girl groaned in frustration. "Look, we were on a genin team. I know he's a traitor, but with all due respect so are you, and you'll forgive me if I don't want to stand by watching two teammates of mine tear each other apart." She was clearly thinking of another time, another situation.
This girl had more to her than he'd originally thought. She was not simply a wounded, angry girl looking for power for revenge.
"Don't you hate me, then?" Itachi asked quietly. "For ruining Sasuke's life?"
Haruno looked down, then up again. Her shrug was forced. "Yeah. Yeah, I do." He barely heard what he probably wasn't meant to hear—"And I'm gonna fix it."
Winter came.
Cherry trees did not bloom in the winter.
Hidan and Kakuzu came back claiming they'd killed Asuma. Nobody noticed the subtlest clenching of Sakura's fists.
If Itachi noticed when she started going out at night and coming back reeking of alcohol, he didn't say anything.
When word came that Hidan and Kakuzu had been killed by Shikamaru's team, nobody noticed Sakura's subtlest smile. She had been close to neither Hidan nor Kakuzu, having had maybe one conversation with Kakuzu about reattachment of limbs and one conversation with Hidan about religion. Neither had warranted any more speech. They were the perfect team for each other, and the perfect team to take down together. She wasn't sorry they were gone, in the end.
Two fewer people she'd have to deal with when the time came.
When word came that Jiraiya was dead, Sakura noticed that Itachi, while painting to pass the time, used a heavy red stroke and accidentally knocked over the cup of paint. Sakura looked away and pretended not to notice.
When word came that Tsunade stepped down from the post of Hokage, Itachi pretended not to notice that Sakura drank so hard that night that she was vomiting throughout the whole next day and could barely form hand seals.
By the time word came that Kakashi had reluctantly replaced Tsunade as Hokage, Itachi had a coughing fit such that his airways were cut off for several minutes and Sakura had to perform CPR just to keep him alive. She doubled the strength of his medicine after that.
As the money she usually spent on food started getting spent on alcohol, Sakura grew thinner.
Living in Orochimaru's lair, Sasuke didn't have much of an idea of what was going on in the outside world. Orochimaru didn't send him on missions anymore. His steroids and drugs had been doubled by Kabuto and the longest Sasuke could stay away from base was four days, just enough to keep himself sane.
He learned jutsu after jutsu, made a pact to summon Manda, but he still felt like he wasn't improving a bit.
Sakura wouldn't get out of his head, and when he took sleeping pills she remained in his dreams, just standing there.
Konoha made another attempt to retrieve him, and during the short fight he learned that Kakashi had been made Hokage.
He took out Sai and Kohaku like they were nothing and Orochimaru took on Naruto.
Their base was destroyed, but it was time to move on to another one anyway.
The moment Sasuke walked into the bar in a nearby village to escape the snowy air outside, he knew Sakura was there, and he knew she was drunk.
She hadn't even bothered changing her hair. She'd probably be safer that way anyway—nobody would bother annoying her with her reputation.
Except Sasuke.
Hardly knowing what he was doing, he plopped down in the seat next to her and asked the bartender for a random drink off the menu. Sakura was bent over her own drink, hair hanging over it. She could have been asleep if not for the fact that every thirty seconds she raised the glass to drink from it. After a few minutes, she seemed to realize he was there. He expected a punch. Expected her to try to walk away. Didn't expect her to give him a stare that was almost challenging.
After a few more minutes of this awkward eye contact, Sakura spoke, slow and slurred.
"Watcha doin' here?"
"Same as you, probably," Sasuke replied, taking the drink the bartender proffered. "Drowning my sorrows in alcohol."
Sakura took a while to respond. "I haven't got any sorrows. I'm Sakura fuckin' Haruno." Sasuke's mouth twisted at the crude language flowing so freely from her lips. Damn, she actually was drunk. "I'm in Akatsuki. I've got enough money. I'm strong enough to beat most people with a finger. And I'm freakin' hot." She laughed bitterly, downing the rest of the drink.
"How many of those have you had?" Sasuke wondered.
"Fuck knows." Sakura reached over suddenly and tried to steal his drink.
"No you don't," Sasuke growled, and snatched it back, taking a long drought.
"Wait a second." Sakura frowned suddenly. "You're Sasuke, aren't you."
"Are you actually just realizing that?" Sasuke felt like teasing Sakura was waking him up from the longest sleep of apathy under years of Orochimaru.
"I'm supposed to like…be pretending to hate you. Mneh. Whatever, I dun wanna lie. Good to see ya."
"And why would you be pretending to hate me?" Sasuke queried, interested in a loose-lipped Sakura.
"'cause. Then I can tell myself I don't needa bother with you. I lie to myself. Heheh." She drained the next drink the bartender had wordlessly given her. "Not cool being partnered with Itachi. Bastard looks too much like you."
With the drinks he was consuming, Sasuke figured he was getting a little drunk too, because he was focusing way too much on her lips. Her lips should not have been that red. Her green eyes so lidded. Her cheeks flushed. What the hell was he doing? "Do you do this a lot?" he asked.
"I don't have that much money. When I start drinking, I don't stop till I've passed out." She let her head fall to the table momentarily. "Even I know that." Sakura grabbed two small packets from her purse. "Want some sugar in that?"
"In alcohol?" Sasuke asked incredulously. "In these drinks?"
"Tastes better than you'd think. Adds to the buzz." Sakura poured one packet into her glass and offered the other to Sasuke. Sasuke shrugged and put some in her own. Why the hell not? He took a drink and didn't notice much of a difference. Whatever. Then again, Sakura was so drunk it probably didn't matter what the drink tasted like.
"You far from the base?" Sasuke asked casually. "Where's Itachi?" maybe, if Itachi was just as inebriated as she, he could sneak in and kill him…
"'Tachi's back at base. It's a long way away. I'm coming back from a solo mission. Collecting really potent aphrodisiacs from the land of Tea. Why Leader-sama wants those, I don't wanna know." She snorted. "Though seriously, an organization full of men and one other woman, I shouldn't be surprised. I thought he and Konan were too close from the beginning."
Something occurred to Sasuke as he downed another glass. "Sakura, where are these aphrodisiacs right now?"
"In my pouch," Sakura answered. She straightened a bit.
Sasuke picked up the torn sugar packets on the bar. "Sakura, these aphrodisiacs wouldn't happen to have been in red packets with the logo from the land of tea on them?"
"Yeah. They would." Sakura yawned. "Now that I think about it, I ran out of sugar yesterday with the tea that I was having. Akatsuki's tea is freakin' epic."
"Sakura!" Sasuke growled. "Are you telling me we've just ingested these 'potent aphrodisiacs'?"
Sakura blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Prolly. That makes a lot more sense." She frowned. "You're not nearly drunk enough, you know. Just like you to not be affected by alcohol. Asshole. Stupid perfect Sasuke."
"What the hell are you blabbering on about? And how do we get the aphrodisiacs out of our systems?"
Sakura stood up shakily and poked him in the chest. "You, Sasuke. You're a problem. Always there being so damn perfect, except when you're not. You're a dick, you know. I've saved you from death so many times and what do I get? You dropping me from 150 feet. I mean, I'm supposed to be over it now, right? I'm a powerful, renowned kunoichi." She poked him again, harder. "But noooo. You come and ruin my composure and turn me back into a simpering little girl who can't get over a crush. For fuck's sake, why don't you go harass someone else with your existence?"
Sasuke was rather speechless, his mouth hanging open. "Uh…"
"Stupid, sexy Sasuke," she was saying, leaning closer so he could smell the alcohol on her breath. Her chest heaved with each breath, and her cloak had come unbuttoned in some places. Her lips were blood red, eyes mere slits, cheeks stained pinker than her hair as she got so close that her hair was tickling his nose.
"Fuck, you're drunk," Sasuke gasped out, not realizing he too was breathing hard.
"Maybe I am," Sakura whispered huskily, and the next second—what the fuck—her lips were on his and she was pushing him back against the bar and he opened his mouth to object except her tongue was wrestling his into submission. His arms felt like jelly as he tried to push her off and it didn't work. After approximately a minute, she came up for air, and spat, "Serves you fucking right," before diving in again.
A second later, she seemed to realize what she was doing, and pushed Sasuke away and stormed out of the bar. Sasuke stood there for a moment before following her and slamming her against the cold wall of the building. He leaned in next to her ear. "You're not much better, you know," he whispered. "Showing up at Orochimaru's base pretending you felt nothing for me after all that time…you gave yourself to me before, you're not allowed to take it back. Leaving so soon afterwards, teaming up with my fucking brother of all people, not giving me a clear reason…getting in my way." He nipped her ear. "You're annoying." Nibbled on her lower lip. "And a fucking tease." Then he forced his lips on hers, and her arm came around to grasp the spikes at the back at his hand, pulling at them, while Sasuke's arms rested on the wall on either side of her head.
They were locked in that position, wrestling tongues, until Sasuke was unfairly distracted by Sakura's hands grabbing his ass.
Oh, it was on. He was not going to lose.
Sasuke woke the next morning in a dirty bed in a motel, half naked, his existing clothes torn, hair messy, with a woman beside him, and he realized last night couldn't have gone well.
He scrambled up and then hastily turned away, realizing the woman was Sakura and her breasts were very much exposed, not to talk about her lower body. This was just indecent. Vaguely, Sasuke realized his head actually didn't hurt like it usually did in the morning, but he ignored the fact in search for his clothes. He was so not going to look at Sakura naked. He was not going to look at his ex-teammate naked. Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He'd seen plenty last night.
He jumped at a muffled voice coming from Sakura. "Okay, last night was either really good or really bad." She took her arm off her eyes and looked at Sasuke, then noticed that her Akatsuki cloak was nowhere to be found and she was in a ripped camisole. And nothing else. "Oh, shit."
"Really bad, then?" Sasuke guessed as he gathered up his sword and kunai pouch. He glanced back at Sakura, who seemed torn between being bemused and freaking out
"I don't even know," she murmured, like she was on the edge of a panic attack. When she realized Sasuke was preparing to leave, she frowned. "Hey, where are you going?"
"Away," Sasuke replied, not pausing at all as he found and smoothed down his clothes.
Sakura almost looked like she was going to protest. She stretched like a cat and rolled over, searching the room.
"I'm pretty sure your cloak is in the bathroom, but it's probably pretty torn," Sasuke muttered in answer to her unspoken question. "And your pants are probably outside in the snow."
"Oh, this isn't awkward at all."
Sasuke said nothing and went for the door.
"Sasuke, I…"
he turned around to see the blush that spread all across her body.
"…nevermind. It's pointless."
"You're annoying," said Sasuke. "Guess you were right about the fate thing. I'll see you around."
That smile…it could almost be gentle.
And then he was gone.
What the hell had just happened?
AN: So here's the situation- updates for the next 2 months will be sparse, and after that they'll pick up a lot (summer vacation fuck yeah).
And no. No lemon. This story is rated T. But I might upload it elsewhere or as another story...sometime. Maybe.
I feel like I'm rushing things, but I want to get to the next major parts, y'know?
Reviews would be lovely! Thanks for reading.