title: ablaze
prompt: #15 - eye of the storm
summary: "my place has always been with you."
The medics come for Naruto first, swarming his body, loud and alive as they pull him onto a large stretcher. As he leans back, Naruto glimpses Sasuke still lying against the broken earth, Sakura kneeling beside him, and he immediately starts at the sight of his friend going unattended when he bears the same depth of injuries.
"Oi, put me down," he tells the medics surrounding his stretcher, waving a hand. "Sasuke first."
The medics exchange glances, and one at his right side shakes her head. "Hokage's orders are to get you, as of now," she says, firmly.
Naruto frowns at the vague distaste of her tone. "But –"
"The next group will come for him."
They whisk him away then, leaving Sasuke and Sakura alone. Around them, a whirlwind comes alive of surrounding shinobi searching for teammates gone astray, checking with friends, mourning with others, and a wide circle seems to separate the pair from all else, no one breaking its perimeter to see either of the two.
Sasuke grimaces slightly, and Sakura notices the change of his features within a second, her hands glowing green over the bleeding wound where his left arm used to be.
She bites her lower lip. "How are you feeling, Sasuke-kun?"
Despite the pain, he finds it in himself to half-smile. "Sasuke-kun?" he repeats, "not 'you big jerk'?"
"You're still a jerk," she tells him, voice trembling with a shaky laugh as she lifts a hand to his forehead, smoothing away his bangs, "but still, how are you feeling?"
Sasuke watches as the laughter melts from her face to be replaced with a reminiscent expression. He startles as he glimpses the shine of tears over her eyes, but his arm is leaden and he hates that he can't reach out toward her—
Quickly, almost frantically, he assures her, "I'm fine now."
Sakura listens close enough to hear: because of you.
A smile breaks her features, and Sasuke can breathe again.
For a while, they are silent as the world around them is ablaze. Sasuke exhales, and he can hear the rush and crackle of the flames between the gentle ghosting of Sakura's fingers over his wounds and scars. It almost feels as though he is underwater, watching everything take place from somewhere far away, alone save for Sakura.
He is suddenly overwhelmed with guilt that she is with him instead of with the people she loves and deserves and belongs with.
"Sakura," he says, grasping her wrist. "Don't you have people to be with right now?"
Sakura smiles softly and shakes her head, hair fanning about her chin, and warmth fills Sasuke to his bones. "No," she says, "my place has always been with you."