- Vice -
They had one more night in the Embassy Royal before Sakura and her team began their return journey home. Utsuho wouldn't need to push their pace quite so hard in the absence of a time crunch, so Kiwa insists they spend their last night drinking together excessively on the Kazekage's dime.
Sakura, for once, is grateful for the excuse to indulge. The only thing she usually did in excess was work, and it often took Ino weeks to convince her to leave the hospital and relax. Kiwa, it seems, was taking on Ino's roll tonight.
After her brief conversation with the River General, she'd stood in the adjoining hallway waiting for Shikamaru. When after a half hour he still hadn't returned, she'd walked back to her hotel suite alone, thoughts lost in a swirling haze. All she'd wanted to do was fall into her enormous king size bed and sleep for an eternity.
Instead, she pulled up her last dregs of energy (the ones she'd developed during her hospital residency days) and forced herself to at least shower first.
The water was blissfully restorative, as it always was. She'd scrubbed her skin until it was raw and red, and when her brain wanted to think of Shikamaru she'd scrubbed even harder. She was tender as a newborn by the time she'd exited the bathroom, smelling of citrus blossoms and deep desert water.
The six hours of sleep she gets afterwards are worth a thousand. She sleeps deeply and dreamlessly, window curtains drawn to cocoon her in absolute darkness. Even Kiwa can tell she needs to decompress, and so spends the afternoon visiting with friends and leaving her alone. When her roommate finally returns, it's late into the evening hours.
"Let's go get dinner before the restaurants close." Kiwa whispers softly, giving Sakura a shake to wake her up. "The boys are already waiting for us downstairs."
A deep tremor of anxiety spins through her limbs as Sakura gets up and readies herself. Not willing to acknowledge why, she finds herself taking more care with her hair and criticizing the fit or cut of her clothes. Kiwa seems to notice this shift in her energy, which is surprising considering they are practically strangers.
"Is everything okay?" She asks, eyes locking with Sakura's reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Sakura isn't quite ready to spill her guts yet, especially considering she barely understands her own heart. Kiwa doesn't seem to need an answer though.
Before Sakura can protest what's happening, Kiwa takes her chin in her hand and starts applying tasteful eyeliner to the corners of her lashes. She fussed with Sakura's bangs and makes her change shirts. It's exactly the sort of thing Ino would have done, if she were here.
Sakura finds herself suddenly and inextricably homesick. She's ready to get back to Konoha. To go back to where everything made sense, even if her situation with Kakashi wasn't perfect. She wishes her feelings for Shikamaru could go back to normal.
Well, she'll need to face him eventually…
As they head towards the lobby, Kiwa babbles on about the various hotels they could stay in on the way back to Konoha. Belatedly, Sakura remembers Tsunade's offer to pay for one night at a fancy Ryokan to celebrate the conclusion of the medical Summit. No surprise, the convoy-nin has tried most of the inns between Fire and Suna. Sakura decides to let Kiwa choose where they would stay to celebrate on the way home.
"I'll take you to the Ryokan in my home town!" Kiwa said, dragging Sakura into the elevators. She chats animatedly about an upcoming harvest festival and the mud baths her town is famous for. Sakura finds herself holding her breath and checking her reflection in the elevator mirrors.
Her heart drops into her stomach when they finally reached the hotel lobby. Not from fear, but disappointment.
Ruya and Utsuho are nicely dressed and ready for dinner, but Shikamaru is nowhere to be seen. It seemed 'The Boys' meant just the two convoy-nin. Ruya has seen Shikamaru only briefly in passing. Apparently her friend had business to take care of that night, and would be unable to join them for dinner.
Sakura tries to shake off the lead vest of regret settling over her shoulders. It seemed he and Temari had still more to talk about.
Kiwa, god bless her, grants Sakura no room to ruminate on their missing companion.
Soon, She is swept up into Team Utsuho's familiar group banter. The wait staff plies their table with an endless parade of food and drinks. There is brief talk of pretending it's Utsuho's birthday in order to get a free slice of cake, but their convoy leader immediately shoots the idea down.
Instead, Ruya and Kiwa take turns telling stories they've picked up since becoming an official convoy team. As the evening burns on, even the stoic Utsuho loosens up. When he does laugh, he throws his head back in drunken delight. The volume of it alone makes Sakura's chest feel lighter.
The mountain of a man is apparently an Anbu legacy, and he has more stories to tell than a public library. Turns out, he doesn't just resemble Ibiki Morino, he's distantly related to the family as well.
Sakura had expected to pass the evening in half hearted company. She's surprised when she finds herself genuinely smiling. Ruya passed her another drink, and Sakura thanks heaven it isn't Shochu. After the Daimyo dinner, she never wants to drink the stuff again.
This was the power of a found family, she realizes. Sakura knew she had a tendency to sulk, to spiral and get lost in her own moody thoughts. But just as easily, she could be elevated by the energy of the people around her.
She'd felt the same way at Ino's birthday party, despite being exhausted to the bone. When her thoughts grew heavy, her friends could make them light. When her heart felt tender, family made her strong. Her smile feels like proof the world isn't ending. Instead, it was continuing on, and she could continue on merrily with it.
She thinks of Shikamaru a dozen times that night, and each time the tenderness gets easier to bare. He was her best friend. She loved him dearly. Nothing was ever going to change that, because Shikamaru hated change. She was safe. They would be alright.
She thinks too of her last conversation with Kakashi, and how dangerously close she had come to ruining their precious relationship. Everything that had happened over the last few weeks seemed to lead her to the same conclusion. A conclusion she'd come to years ago: When it came to loving her closest friends, even the greatest rewards were not worth the risk.
But that was okay. She was happy to be alone. She could have other relationships in her life. She would drink and eat and make new friends, and practice her new Jutsu with her seductive hallucination boyfriend. What could possibly go wrong.
"Sakura, drink up!" Kiwa say, and together they swallow down another shot.
She was having an unexpected amount of fun with the convoy trio, but she desperately wants to slip away for a moment to herself. She hasn't seen Yume-Kakashi since Konoha, when they had watched the sun rise together and nursed her newly broken heart.
Her face is red and her vision feels blurry as she stumbled away from their dinner party, drunkenly claiming to need a bathroom. She knows she's making a bad decision, but she's been making a lot of bad decisions lately. What was the harm in making one more?
She finds the nearest bathroom and hurriedly locks herself inside. It was a privacy stall with a solid door that promised her she would not be disturbed. She's about to summon Yume-Kakashi when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her world tips left and right from her buzz, but even she can see she looks like a unmistakeable mess.
The clock inside the bathroom tells of the early morning hour. She hadn't realized they'd been out so late.
She pressed her hands into the marble countertops, flaring chakra through her body to speed up her metabolism. It's like revving an engine on high without putting the machine in gear- It's not the best thing for her body, but it burns through just enough of the alcohol in her system that she's able to finally sharpen her mind. Her vision clears, fixating on her reflection in the mirror.
Her eyeliner has smudged during the night from laughing and unconsciously touching her face. Kiwa had told a particularly funny story of the time Ruya convinced Utsuho to try a mud mask. They'd been attacked by road bandits mid application, so Utsuho had spent the entire fight with his face half-painted avocado green. The Captain has yet to touch a skincare product since. Sakura had found the image hysterical.
Her hair, too, was frizzing wildly in the desert heat. Now that the edge was gone from her buzz, she takes a moment to pat water into her face and smooth down the worst of her disheveled hair. She doesn't look great, but she's definitely looked worse. Yume-Kakashi never seemed to care anyway…
She closes her eyes, pooling chakra into her belly. She desperately wanted to see his smile, to hear his voice whisper in her ear…
At the last moment, something makes her hesitate. Was she really going to do this? Was she really going to be this weak?
Shikamaru's name is a clock bell in her chest, tolling louder every hour. She wants to replace his name with someone else's so she doesn't risk losing the friend she has. Tomorrow, she could blame it on the drinks. Tonight she can allow this little vice.
She closed her eyes, heart racing with anticipation. She feels guilty, and a not a little shameful. She's nervous and excited and…
A pair of knuckles brush their way up her spine, starting at her low back and ending at the base of her neck. When she opened her eyes, she looks up into the mirror. She can not see Kakashi's reflection, but she knows he's there even without it. Then his touch continues on, knuckles turning to fingertips. Two invisible hands traced matching lines out to her shoulders and down the sensitive sides of her arms.
She can see his hands now, can smell the scent of rosemary oil. She feels him press his weight into her back, threading his fingers overtop of hers. She squeezed both his hands in her eager grip, her body trembling with desire and relief.
"I missed you." She says, and her voice is agony. Her thoughts are chaos tossed into a blender. She has a final second to second guess her choices…
But then his mouth is pressed against the side of her neck, and the chaos evaporates into thin air. She anchors her thoughts to his ever-changing touch. She never wants to be parted from him.
"I missed you back." Kakashi says. His breath is a hot puff of desert air across the sensitive skin behind her ear. Her body clenches at the memory of him inside her. It's a memory she hasn't allowed herself to touch since that last time they'd been fully intimate. But the hole in her heart is empty and hungry. If she can't fill it with love, she wants to fill it with vice. With anything she can get her hands on.
Kakashi unspools his fingers from hers, lips lifting from their spot on her collar bone. Her breath is coming is short, small pants and she's embarrassed at how badly she knows she wants him. She waits for his touch to consume her.
But he doesn't put his hands on her hips like she desperately wants him to. Instead, he gently pulls away from her, leaving her skin cold in the absence of his touch...
She turns around to face him now, to follow the source of his life-giving heat. Her Kakashi would happily take any excuse to hear her moan, to make her head swim with thoughts of him.
But when she reaches out for him, he is inexplicably backing away. Both his eyes scan her face with concern. His head is tilted lightly to the side, and she knows with sinking dread he is reading her heart.
Her veins run cold when he takes another step back. He isn't pulling away from her completely, just far enough that he can analyze her without distraction.
"We shouldn't be doing this." He says cautiously.
She doesn't want him to read her heart. She wants everything to stay on the surface. She wants to leave the rest untouched. She know's she's being selfish, but she's so god damn tired of being selfless all the time. She's tired of always wanting everything but never really allowing herself to take.
She swallows hard at the question in his eyes, and when she doesn't answer he asks out loud. "What happened, love?" He says with sweetness, reaching up to cup her cheek with his palm. His voice isn't the hungry, primitive growl she wants- the voice her Sensei might use on a casual lay. It's clear and gentle very much alive, and it's the last thing she wants to feel right now.
Because it reminds her too much of someone else she's already thinking about.
"Sakura?" He says again. Her name is what finally undoes her.
Her vocal chords loop themselves into a knot, and despite her best efforts, she can't bring herself to respond. Her mind floods instead with images and vignettes. Sakura is bad with words. She talks to her Kakashi the only way she knows how. She takes a breath and pushes her thoughts to him, tethered by their life saving bond.
Shikamaru promising to always show up for her.
Temari's face haloed in Suna sunlight.
The chess piece she still has in her pocket, even now.
The very edge of a desire she doesn't want to realize, because the second she touches it it will burst like a bomb.
But these are things she doesn't want to think about. She doesn't want to think about anything at all.
She gives in to her most immediate want, stepping in to her Kakashi and pulling him down. She puts all of her emotions into a fervent kiss, their bodies singing in effortless harmony. His mouth parts first in delighted surprise, and then with hunger he aggressively reciprocates.
His hand, once a gentle touch at her cheek, grips the back of her neck with barely restrained desire. Instantly, one hand is up her shirt, pinching her nipple against his thumb. He floods her senses with everything he gives her, and she knows he wants to giver her more.
"Sakura, wait-" He says into her mouth. But she just kisses him harder, biting his lip the way she knows he likes. She throws herself at him in earnest now, like she's a cup of water being poured back into the sea. She wants to stop being herself for a while, wants to drown in his depths for as long as she can.
He breaks into an involuntary, decadent moan when she touches him below the waist. He sings her name down into her mouth. She can feel his hardening length between her legs. Her fingers undo buttons to pants that don't exist…
'Please.' She thinks. The word rings through her mind in a soul deep prayer. She desperately, hungrily wants him to be real.
"Wait-" Kakashi tries again. His restraint is a silk thread across the edge of a knife.
"I don't want to wait." She says.
All of a sudden, the earth turns over. He's shoving her back as if he's been burned, and reality come crashing down around them. Sakura stumbles, tripping once before finally catching herself. They stare at each other in mutual shock. Their collective thoughts ricochet from horror to surprise.
Because he's never been able to push her before. Shouldn't be able to push her at all...
'What…was that?" She asks, panting heavily to catch her breath.
Kakashi looks down at his own two hands like he's never truly seen them before. "I…I don't know." He replies.
It's the first time she's ever heard him say those words, as Yume-kakashi or even her Sensei. It's the first time there has ever been something in his voice other than unconditional love. She realizes, belatedly, that he's…afraid.
In every interaction they have shared together, she's always been able to hear his voice, to feel his touch and taste his lips. But at the end of the day, Yume-kakashi was incorporeal- he couldn't take up physical space. She could feel the imaginary heat of his hands, but he could never pick her up. He shouldn't be able to push her the way he just did, it wasn't… possible.
He could guide her limbs through their shared thoughts, but he just couldn't move her without her consent. At least, that's how it had always been. At best, he was a day-bright lucid dream, synapses firing in isolated parts of her brain. He could interact with her all she liked, but he couldn't interact with the greater world.
Something wet trickles down her lip.
"Sakura-" Kakashi says, voice heavy with alarm.
What happens next is a disjointed disharmony of thoughts. Like fractals of a memory, layered one atop another. She knows something is wrong because he knows something is wrong, and they are inextricably linked in ways she still doesn't understand.
She turns to look at herself in the mirror. She doesn't exactly understand what she sees…
Because for some reason her reflection's nose is bleeding. No, her nose is bleeding.
"Sakura!" Yume-Kakashi yells, rushing to her side when her world goes white. She stumbles again, and this time she passes clear through his outstretched hands. Her hips land heavy on the cold tile floor. The world is a giant Christmas snow globe and someone has just turned hers upside down.
Her vision spins clockwise, then back again. To and fro, her head rocks for what feels like hours. She doesn't pass out, but the nausea makes her want to. Blessedly, she remains conscious.
In time, her world begins to right itself again. She's never been more thirsty in her entire life. When she can finally drag herself upright to the sink, she gulps down water directly from the tap. She wipes at the blood on her upper lip. The bleed looks worse than it actually is. It's only a tiny burst blood vessel, not a dangerous deeper bleed. She's too tired to use chakra to patch it up, so she just waits for the bleeding to stop. Sometimes, you just have to let the body do things the old fashion way.
Yume-kakashi is nowhere to be seen. She's alone in the bathroom again.
It takes some scrubbing with a paper towel to wipe the blood smear from her face. By the time she's all cleaned up, the dizzy spell has thankfully passed. She decides she's made enough mistakes for one night, and that it's well past time for bed. She unlocks the bathroom door and tries not to think too much on what's just happened. She's doesn't want to think about anything for a while.
She makes her excuses to Kiwa when she finally gets back to the table. Kiwa and Ruya bemoan her decision to leave early, but Utsuho suggests that maybe they should all turn in. It's later than is appropriate for a proper Anbu squad, he says, and soon their group is heading upstairs.
Sakura charges their tab to the suite, but leaves a hefty tip from her own wallet. She nearly faints when she looks at the dinner bill and hopes Gaara won't have her head for it.
Her nose starts to bleed again on the elevator ride up, but it's barely a drop. Not enough to concern her. She wants to call Yume-Kakashi again, but she doesn't have the privacy or the chakra. She almost calls him up anyway- to ask him questions and tell him she's alright.
But Kiwa is asleep now in the other bed, and she knows Yume-Kakashi won't have the answers she needs. She decides to chalk the evening up to being drunk and stupid. Her nose bleed is the result of dry desert air and too much stress for any one person. Everything will be okay when she gets home. Everything will be okay…
She falls asleep, and does not remember if she even dreams.
- Authors Note -
I hope you will not hold this chapter against our heroine, or consider her feelings wishy washy. She isn't meant to be a perfect character, and if she's really going to grow, we have to give her the room to make mistakes. I think we've all done things when we were upset and confused that later we wished we hadn't. So, I ask that you allow Sakura a little bit of grace here for the greater plot. Next chapter will be out very soon,
XOXO - VB