Day 36:
Ino has been gone for a full twenty-four hours. Sakura's brain is exploding.
She wants to scream and throw things. She wants to tear down that fucking, life-ruining drug den and rescue her best friend from the rubble, kicking and screaming like she certainly would be, but Sakura will break both her legs to drag her ass back to Konoha and save her life, if that's what she has to do –
Familiar, much?
Sakura literally slaps herself. The pain reverberates across her face like a spreading fire, and the moment of clarity that follows is much needed. It's also terribly brief.
Does everything have to be about Sasuke?!
She understands Naruto so much more now, but by virtue of that, she also understands exactly how ridiculous it'd been to make him promise to bring Sasuke home all those years ago. Not that he wouldn't have nearly died trying anyway. That reckless determination is something Sakura knows bitterly well now.
Yet, once again, she's somehow unable to do a damn thing to help. Barging in there will do nothing but ruin their mission, or worse, depending on who and what awaited her. She might get them both killed. Ino's hard work would be for nothing – the eight patches they've collected would be a poor consolation prize in comparison to taking down the drug ring and solving the mysteries surrounding it.
None of this logic keeps Sakura from panicking, though. This is how it starts – this is symptomatic. People leave, and then they come back, and then they stop coming back, and what if Ino never, ever comes back? What if she's dead?!
Call the coast guard! Call the army! The stupid, hysterical part of her mind screams, to which she screams back, I am the army!
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Just a little over a month, and she's losing her grip like she's clutching at smoke, trying to cradle it in her hands, and Ino is a shadow of the person she'd been when they left, and it's as baffling as it is tragic.
How did they get here? How has this happened?
Sakura is supposed to be the one whose mental faculties are intact enough to answer that question, but she can't. Time blurs and warps and makes no sense after so many days of emotional distress, after over a month of seeing practically nothing but the inside of this bare room. Is time passing at all? How could she possibly know the answer to that question? All she knows is that the dripping of the sink is weirdly timed in three-count beats, that there are sixty-four tiles on the shower wall and thirty-eight planks of wood making up the floor, and she has lost her God. Damn. Mind.
So has Ino.
"It shouldn't be like this," she mutters, deepening the grooves she's already made in the floor from long nights of pacing. "I'm supposed to be the back-up plan, the one who was supposed to solve this damn thing weeks ago and – and I'm talking to myself."
Sakura stops abruptly. The silence in the room is achingly loud. It used to be that there was a voice who would answer her at times like this, that section of her mind she'd compartmentalized as a child.
Long gone, though. Now, she's all alone, and even if Ino comes back, she'll still be alone, because it's not really Ino that's coming back. If she does at all.
The Ino she knows wouldn't have left her here, totally distraught, without teasing her back into the comforts of anger and witty banter. That Ino wouldn't have left for this long at all, and she would've never used Sasuke against her, and she'd never sidestep her pride to sleep with someone for drugs of all things, if she didn't have to – she'd be right here, right now, saying, "Suck it up, Forehead! Just because you're the Hokage's apprentice doesn't mean you can write me off like that! I'll be fine!"
Sakura would believe her, too. Ino knows herself well. Her confidence is huge and hard earned, and she has the skills to back it up, so the fact that it's been weeks since Ino told her that she's fine is undeniably meaningful.
She's not fine. She's caught in the clutches of the most addictive drug Sakura has ever heard of, doing things that would've made her kick her own ass in shame a month ago, mission or not. And Sakura is leaning heavily towards "not." She isn't sure that Ino has thought about the mission for a long time now.
But when Ino at last returns to their hotel room at three in the morning, twenty-six hours after she left, she still drops five patches at Sakura's feet before collapsing on the mattress.
Her clothes are ripped. Her hair is undone and left in unruly waves down to her waist – the snapped hairband is tangled in a knot by her shoulder. She smells like sex and booze and sweat, and her lips are swollen, and five is suddenly a bigger number than Sakura's ever given it credit for. No – not five. Six. Her heart sinks. She watches Ino pull another from her pocket and lick it, slapping it on her arm with such nonchalance that Sakura doesn't even think to stop her.
"What…" The words get caught in Sakura's mouth, all trying to escape at once and jamming in her throat. Ino's eyes slide over to her. If she'd looked defensive, or angry, Sakura might've just given up to avoid the fight. But she just looks sad. Tired. Like she's lived a full life and died and been brought back to do it all over again.
"Ino, what did – how did you –"
She shrugs. She doesn't even attempt to find a reason for it, and Sakura's anger, built up from her frenzied worry and indignation, cracks a little bit at that.
Yamanaka Ino once pulled her from the pits of self-loathing and taught her how to live in this world. This woman on this mattress, indifferent to her own slow death, once made the earth turn, in Sakura's eyes. If she dies, what will happen to the universe she's built up around her? What will happen to Sakura?
She'll do everything in her power to never find out. "I'm not letting you do this anymore," Sakura says firmly.
"It's for the mission."
Sakura isn't having it.
"Not this – it isn't. Not anymore. If you were in your right mind, you would never freely prostitute yourself for drugs, Ino. You value yourself too much to be doing what you're doing, and I'd be a shitty best friend if I didn't stop you now."
She waits for Ino to jump up and shout at her, to scream that she's doing her best and it's working – or at least to tell Sakura to stop being such a sap – but she doesn't. She just sighs. Her eyes close and she may as well be talking to the ceiling.
"You don't understand," she mutters. "Maybe it's not part of the mission, but it's an effect of the drug. You know I can't help that."
"But this wasn't supposed to happen!" Sakura is shouting and she wishes she weren't. It's only going to rile both of them up, but she can't stop. Somehow, the volume of her voice and the amount of tears in her eyes are inversely related, and she doesn't want to cry more than she doesn't want to scream. "You were supposed to be able to handle this – that's why we're here together! What about all that mental fortitude Tsunade-sama praised you for? Can't you go into your head and just –"
Ino at last looks angry. "If I were able to do that, don't you think I would've done it already?"
"No. I don't." Sakura takes a step forward, and then another, slowly, until she's standing over the mattress. "That's the thing about being an addict. You avoid the things that make you able to stop because you don't really want to."
She's surprised to feel Ino still has the strength to yank her down by the wrist. Startled, Sakura's knees hit the ground with a painful thud, and Ino sits up so fast that her head feels inverted, but she doesn't let it show. She can only hold the wrist in her hand for so long, though. The drug is coursing through her and Sakura's skin is hot, and soft, and Ino is pissed, but somehow that anger is just proof of the connection she feels like a force of nature, that thing Sakura shapes inside her that she can't describe.
Ino drops her wrist. "Do you honestly think," she says flatly, astoundingly lucid, "that I enjoy doing what I'm doing?"
"I…"
"Come on, Sakura. I hate this," she gestures at the room around them, the peeling paint and the black mold on the ceiling, and then her own body. "I hate me right now, but you said it yourself. I can't exactly just stop when I want to. That's not how it works."
"But… sleeping with – with those guys? I mean, do you have to, if you don't actually want to? We definitely have enough patches now, and if it's not really for the mission, then… Isn't there… something else you can do, to keep yourself grounded…?" Sakura trails off. Her anger is tempered by Ino's sudden level-headedness, granted by a hard won tolerance she wishes she didn't have, and in its absence, all of Sakura's bold conclusions and brazen words vaporize like water in a hot pan.
Ino is waiting for her to finish the thought, but she can't. All the blood in Sakura's body is making a new home in her face.
"You still don't get it," Ino explains. "I may not have to have sex, but I do have to take the drugs, and do I have to go to the parties, so it basically amounts to the same thing. I need people – closeness – something. I can't just make it go away on its own, and when I try, it feels like someone's unthreading me – Sakura?"
Sakura still doesn't answer though. Her face is redder than her t-shirt – which is as red as most of her clothes – and her eyes keep darting around the room like a cat following a laser pointer. She won't look at Ino, even when Ino cranes her neck to try and meet Sakura's wandering gaze. What the, Ino thinks, amused and mildly exasperated. She's just sitting there, all tongue-tied and flustered like they're ten-years-old again and passing Sasuke in the halls of the Academy –
Oh.
Oh, no.
"You don't really mean that," Ino deadpans. It's not a question. What Sakura is offering is more than just tempting to her over-stimulated brain, every nerve in her body sensitized and primed and craving – but there's no way. It's just drugs. What Sakura is feeling is just stress and pity, and Ino knows that she would do anything, anything, for a friend who needed her, no matter how badly she didn't want to, with that big heart of hers. Too big for someone so fragile.
Do it! Her drug-brain urges, that frustrating chorus of cheering miniatures in her mind's eye, all garbled in the imagery formed by burnt-out neurons. So close! Feel good, closer is better touch her it'll be better than anything ever don't you want to feel good –
No. Ino digs her nails into her thigh as hard as she can, hard enough to draw blood. She can't do that. She can't just use Sakura to satiate drug-induced cravings – she can't take what her best friend has coveted for years in all her misguided, ideologically questionable and endearingly naïve fantasies.
It's Sakura, for fuck's sake. Come on.
Sakura is always a step away from falling apart. Ino doesn't want to be the reason why.
Even now, Sakura is clearly second-guessing herself. Her shoulders slump at the lack of affirmative response. "I want to help," she admits embarrassedly. "I'm just stuck in this room all day, unable to figure anything out, and you're out there getting hurt, risking your life, just like you said, and I…"
"You don't actually want to do this. Don't be an idiot."
"You don't know that," Sakura mutters, arms crossed like a petulant child.
Please don't ask me again, Ino thinks so forcefully that she hopes Sakura can somehow hear it. She wipes her sweaty palms on the butt of her pants and clings to any scrap of reason she can find. There aren't many.
So much love so sweet this girl can't even believe she'd do this don't –
If she were drunk, these sorts of garbled emotions would probably result in her throwing an arm over Sakura's shoulders and wailing about how much she loves her, and they should totally hang out more, and how dumb were they for ending their friendship over a boy?
Not on this drug. No sir. Ino wants to marry her and have her babies.
Despite her wishes, however, Sakura is determined to press the point, no matter how embarrassing it is to prostrate herself like this. Her brain is all soupy and muddled from the last month. She can't tell left from right in her own heart anymore, and she can't tell what feelings are real and what aren't, but there are still the facts.
And the fact is that it's Ino, and Ino has always been the only constant in her life. As people come and go, as they leave and die around them, for missions, retribution, wives, husbands and hobbies, they've somehow always wound up alone – together. They've always had each other even when they thought they didn't.
It's surprisingly easy now, in the face of the last thirty-six days, to come to the conclusion that she's never made a more meaningful bond in her life. Others were one-sided, imbalanced, painful, laced with bitterness at her mistakes or theirs. She loves Naruto like a brother. She's still not sure if he's ever really forgiven her for putting that weight on his shoulders so long ago.
In the end, she's known no one better, loved no one longer, than Ino.
It's slipping through her fingers now, though, like liquid through a sieve, but that's how it works, isn't it? Life's ironies. It's only when the water is drained that you find what's underneath it.
"Sakura."
"Listen," she interjects, fiercely clutching her resolve, "I know – I know it's not exactly a good substitute, okay? This is – I'm not – I know you think I'm unattractive, and to be honest, I have no idea what's going on in my head anymore, but I meant what I said. I know you'd hate yourself for doing this if you were sober, and I want to help, so if you think it might keep you from – doing something you'd find repulsive – then, I'm telling you, just –"
Ah, shit.
Fuck this. There's only so much Ino can take. She can literally feel the thing that she's been searching for rolling off Sakura in waves, and when she at last tosses good sense to the wind and more or less throws the other woman onto their mattress, it feels like the very first time she'd slipped that patch on. Only better. Not just part of a whole, anymore, but both at once. It's not like at the club, either, where the entire world seems to extend from her fingertips in a massive, interconnected web. It's different. It's good different.
But laced in all that intense emotion is a solemn reminder. She's not sure anymore if it's because of the drugs, or if it's because of the way her mind is primed to receive thoughts, or if it's just because it's them, but she can feel the curiosity, the apprehension, the love and loyalty all wavering unsteadily in Sakura's indecision. Ino is right. Sakura really isn't sure – she's just determined to do this anyway. Which is fine. Ino couldn't stop either way.
Still, she's determined to preserve – whatever it is of Sakura's she feels needs preserving. The protectiveness she's always carried is still there, reminding her in whispered mantra, she's hurt, don't hurt her, she's hurt, don't hurt her, she's…
So Ino does only what her body demands and no more.
Which isn't what Sakura was expecting. Hoping for? She doesn't know anymore. She's flat on her back and Ino climbs on top of her, both of them fully clothed. The touches are long and lingering and meaningful, fingertips ghosting up her ribcage, the press of lips against the base of her neck, but Ino doesn't kiss her. She's grinding her body down onto Sakura's thigh and her body heat, the friction is so much not enough through their clothes, but it is for Ino, apparently. She's whispering nonsense in Sakura's ear, making her shiver and reminding her that they can be this close, maybe closer, but they're not quite together. Not with Ino's mind where it is.
"Beautiful," Ino mutters. "So… much… don't…"
Sakura only registers half of the words. Most of her brain is devoted to keeping the fragmented things in her head, pieces of thoughts and feelings as sharp as glass, from spilling out of her mouth. She's wondering if Ino knows that she has no idea what's happening. She's worried that she should be doing something. She's thinking about whether or not she's supposed to be thinking this hard, and why can't her brain just shut up, and is there a reason, the thought sneaks its way in, that Ino won't kiss her?
Her body learns to respond in spite of the buzzing in her brain, and her hands find their way to the back of Ino's thighs, pulling her closer. She's determined to fight her way to the plane of existence that the woman on top of her inhabits, but she knows she can't get there. They're experiencing a totally different event. She's not sure which is real, or if either of them are, and the thought makes her heart hurt and her head ache.
When Ino tenses and shudders and whispers her name in her ear, Sakura stills completely as the fragile things she'd been trying to stuff back into her mind clatter around her. Her eyes water.
It's drugs. Why is she being such a damn idiot? Ino is so, so fucked up right now, and Sakura is just – what she's always been. A delusional romantic.
She pushes the heels of her palms into her eyes and grits her teeth.
If someone went back in time and told Sakura that her first sexual experience would be with her drugged up and recently gangbanged best friend, she might've literally shit herself in disbelief.
Not real. This is not real.
"Alright. Okay," she sighs wearily, gently separating herself from Ino and going to the door. "That's enough, I think."
The glazed over look on Ino's face doesn't dissipate. "Er… wha?"
I, Sakura thinks plainly, looking at the limp form on the mattress, am pathetic.
She approaches Ino and kneels beside her. Runs a hand over her face. Almost kisses her and doesn't, because she's stupid, but she's not that stupid.
"…Sakura?"
"I'm calling it," Sakura answers, her fingers sliding down Ino's jawline to her neck. "No more drugs."
Ino does not have time to protest, although she looks like she fully intends to do that, before Sakura squeezes that funny point at the base of her neck. She's out like a light.
Sakura gathers the fallen patches. She removes the eight others from her travel bag, picks up the five on the floor, and even goes so far as to scrape the leftover residue from her chemical analysis, and then wonders where she can hide them in this barren room.
In a stroke of genius, she puts them in a plastic bag and sews it into her shirt.