- Fragile -
"Please call for us the second she wakes up." One of the younger nurses says. She moves to the other side of Sakura's hospital bed and fiddles with one of the IV bags. She seems hesitant to leave the room, even though Kakashi has promised multiple times to call for them if Sakura wakes up.
"I'm not going anywhere." He reassures the nurse, grateful when his voice doesn't crack.
Because really, where else could he go? Where on earth could he possibly run that would allow him to escape the visions of Sakura limp and bloody in his arms?
Another nurse slips into the room, checking Sakura's vital signs.
"You again." Chisue says, eyeing him warily from across the bed. She takes in Kakashi's shellshocked eyes without pity or concern.
"Be nice…" The younger nurse pleads with them both.
Kakashi remembers he'd solidified his reputation as a "challenging" patient during his last visit. "I'm not here to make trouble this time, I promise." He prays Chisue won't send him home to change out of his bloody uniform. He probably looks like a war casualty.
"I highly doubt that." Chisue says, but she leaves him to his business after that. She exits the room muttering something about retirement and reckless Kunoichi who should know better.
Kakashi doesn't hold her cold bedside manner against her. In a way, the old woman is probably a bit like him- too hardened by frequent and repetitive loss to truly be phased by it anymore. She's taking Sakura's semi-stable condition in strides while Kakashi… well, let's just say he's not.
Kakashi is no stranger to loss. Even from an early age, he and death had been familiarly acquainted. Between losing his father and both his team mates, death had become a regular fixture in his life. So had survivors guilt and deep self loathing.
But finally, over the last few years…he'd been getting better. His survivors guilt didn't haunt him quite the way it use to. His self esteem had even improved from crippling self loathing to a tolerable dislike.
He'd cut back to visiting the memorial stone from once a day to once a week. He'd adopted three new Ninken pups who's antics were of invaluable therapy. He'd even managed to keep Naruto's houseplants alive for him, albeit after extensive research on spider mites.
He'd even started to think of death as less of a neighbor and more like an old acquaintance with whom he'd lost touch. In short, he'd done everything he could to appreciate the present instead of fixating on the failures of his past.
He could go hours without thinking of Obito, and days without thinking about Rin. He only thought of Hiruzen when he remembered Minato, and he mostly only remembered Minato when Naruto was involved.
He only thought of Naruto every time he thought of Sakura…But he'd been thinking of Sakura a lot lately, which was it's own complication.
So maybe the only thing he was actually better at now was how good he'd gotten at lying to himself. Because the way he'd cradled Sakura's face while she bled out in his arms… That did not tell him he was better. The ocean of nausea at the thought of losing her did not reassure him that he was better. Rin's face had flickered in an overlay across Sakura's in a way it hadn't done in years.
There were some things even puppy paws could not make better. Some things just took…time. But even after all this time, he could still feel the way his hand felt as it skewered Rin through her twelve year old heart.
Every person he'd ever lost…
His fault.
His.
And as for the pink haired girl beside him… that had almost been his fault too.
Once the last nurse leaves the room, Kakashi leans in. He takes his time scanning Sakura's face. He watches the shallow way she breathes, looks for the tiny heart beat thumping in her neck. If he still believed in Gods, he would probably thank them now.
But he doesn't, so he doesn't. He watches her in silence, instead.
Someone has washed the blood from her nose, but there's still dried flecks of it in the fine wrinkles of her skin. He doesn't know exactly what caused her to bleed out, but he knows his Genjutsu had been the trigger. He'd completely lost control when he'd pushed his chakra into her mind, and now she was unconscious because of it.
'You're getting really good at hurting the people you love, Hatake.'
No, he'd been the furthest thing from in control. He'd been beyond livid with her for turning their bell game into an all out battle royal. She'd never pushed him that far before, attacking like she was coming for his life. The resulting adrenaline in his veins had turned into a sort of poison, a primal fight-or-flight response built up from his Anbu years. He'd slammed his Genjutsu into her far harder than he should have. Or at least, he'd meant to…
But instead of an unresisting mind, he'd struck himself dizzy against an iron barrier. It had felt like running full sprint towards a door only to discover it was a trick wall.
He'd never encountered a consciousness before that didn't fold like tissue paper against his Dojutsu. But if the Sharingan was like manipulating the waters of a still lake, Sakura's mind had been reenforced cement; impossibly fixed and unyielding.
He'd encountered ninja who were Genjutsu escape artists, able to jailbreak a mind prison using their chakra as a skeleton key… but he'd never been outright denied entry into someone's mind before.
And bloody hell, he'd tried breaking down that wall. He'd slammed his chakra into hers with the force of an incoming asteroid. He'd fought tooth and nail for control of the Genjutsu, never expecting something angry to start fighting back…
When she'd been only a Genin, he'd mistakenly thought of Sakura as fragile- the token Kunoichi on a team full of monsters she had no business being on. He's been just as wrong then as he was today. Even if she had been once, she sure as hell wasn't fragile anymore. He'd never explicitly told her so, but it had been many, many years since he'd thought her as such.
But even though he'd already respected her, she'd opened his eyes even further today. She'd beaten the respect into him with a punch that nearly knocked his teeth out. She'd planned her strategy 40 moves ahead. Because he'd underestimated her, he'd played right into her trap. She was powerful and she was dangerous, but it had nothing to do with her inhuman strength.
In the end, Sakura had become her own kind of monster, and she hadn't needed his help getting there.
"What was that, Sakura?" He whispers to the room. He's torn between being afraid of her and being afraid for her.
Regardless of what it was, her Jutsu was the last thing that mattered right now. First, he needed her to be safe.
He needs her to be okay, because she might be the one in the hospital bed, but he was the fragile one in the room.
He doesn't know what he'll do if she doesn't make it out of this, if he's responsible for the death of another loved one…
Beep. Beep.
The heart rate monitor in the corner kicks up its pace for just a blip before slowing back down to a sedated rhythm. Kakashi looks back to Sakura hopefully, but her face remains placidly unresponsive.
Her breath is still a shallow hush and her head has lolled sideways into her pale blue pillow. Kakashi knows from personal experience that the pillows here are practically prison bricks- so much so that he had preferred to spend his hospital incarceration primarily in his wheel chair.
He swallows through the rock in his throat. He's suppressing the urge to scoop her up and cradle her in his lap instead. Because even though Sakura is not fragile, even though she doesn't need his coddling… he'll always feel the need to protect her. Even if he's protecting her from himself.
He settles for an acceptable compromise and stands up from his seat. He leans in to fix her lumpy pillows, carefully adjusting her neck strait on. He turns her head so she won't be sore if she…when she wakes up soon. He brushes the hair back from her face, tucking her bangs behind her ears. His heart pounds softly in his chest, the quiet tempo marching in solidarity to the beeping of the monitors in the corner.
He stands like that, knuckles resting against her cheek. The moment stretches out into eternity. His rogue thumb traces the puffy outline of a bruise starting to form at the edge of her jaw. He is careful to keep his touch feather light, afraid to hurt her even more than he already has.
And then, because he can not help himself…because she's not fragile and he needs her to be okay…
He reaches up with his other hand and catches a finger on the edge of his mask. His hand hovers there for an endless second before he slowly slides it free of his face. It pools around the base of his neck, forgotten. Then he leans over, an inch at a time.
Before he can talk himself out of it, he presses his bare lips into the center of her forehead.
Once.
Just this once, he wants no barriers between them. Not his guilt, not his responsibilities, not even the thin fabric of his mask.
He lets his kiss linger there, whispering silent prayers against her skin. He just needs her to be okay…
The heart rate monitor springs to life; the girl beneath him shifts under his hands.
"Kakashi…" Sakura whispers.
And even though he hasn't believed in gods for years, Kakashi believes in them now.
His name on her lips is his salvation. If one could die from relief alone, he's already dead and buried. He pulls back from her, terror in his eyes. His palms roam her face, the edges of her jaw. He touches her to prove to himself this isn't a dream. He can't hear anything beyond the pounding of his heart as he realizes she's really awake. Alive.
Sakura's eyelids flutter, her gaze focusing in and out. One of her hands floats up off the bed and fists into the fabric of his shirt. It's like she's trying to steady herself, dizzy even though she's laying down.
He wants to tell her that he's sorry, that all of this is his fault.
He wants to tell her that he loves her, that he doesn't know why he's so bad at showing it.
But he's never actually been good with words, so instead, he leans in and kisses her face. Again. And again. He presses cloud soft kisses into her temple. The bridge of her nose. The corner of her mouth. With his lips he says Forgive me, and I'm sorry and Thank God.
And when she turns her face up into his, the last thread of restraint inside him breaks.
Her lips slide into his like home.
Suddenly he's kissing her, and he can't stop. Her tongue is sugar and her lips are wine. He drinks her in like he's insanity and she's his only hope for a cure. He kisses her out of fear and he kisses her in reassurance. Her mouth is everything he's ever imagine it to be, and better than he'd ever hoped.
'Stop. You need to stop.' He thinks.
He knows that after this, he will have to give her back. That just because he's crossing this line it doesn't mean he's allowed to live there…But he lets himself have her for this one brief moment. He allows himself to feel something besides the numbness and control that has shackled his soul through a decade of loss.
He kisses her, knowing he's sentencing himself to a lifetime of knowing exactly what he's not allowed to have. That surely this kiss will be the death of him, but he drinks the poison anyway.
He kisses her the way that someone like her should be kissed. A small part of him hopes that, what ever happens next, she will never settle for anything less than the worship he breathes into her now. And that is what Kakashi does; he worships her with his mouth. He says moaning prayers to what she represents: Light. Hope. Warmth. Belonging.
Things mere mortals like him only dream of.
But while he's busy losing himself in the technicolor of her tongue, he feels her hand slide down to his hip.
He feels the snap of a broken string and hears the tinkling of a single bell.
He pulls back from her, lost and confused. He has just enough coherency about him to brace himself, right before the horror fully sets in.
What...had he just done?
He remembers that this girl is under his care. She is his to protect, not his to keep. Not his to take advantage of in her vulnerable state.
He watches her eyes roll back as she grapples with consciousness, and he wants to die. She's still trying to overcome the one-two punch of blood loss and pharmaceutical sedation.
Her head lolls to the side, and she looks down at his bell like it's an alien object from another world. And then, with a pride he's never seen her wear before, her lips slide into a victorious grin.
"Checkmate." She says in a quiet voice. But she says it like she's saying I love you, and somehow that makes everything so much worse.
He has just enough time to realize that his mask is still down when her eyelids flutter closed. Sakura doesn't see him imploding. She is fast asleep once more.
- Paper cut -
"The Daimyo want an answer before the end of the summit, at which point Sakura's bill will either succeed or fail. I need you to make this decision on your own. I have to send your answer by midnight tomorrow."
Shikamaru hadn't slept well. He hadn't eaten. He hadn't been able to put a string of clear thoughts together since his debrief with Tsunade earlier. He didn't want sleep and he didn't want food and he didn't want to think about the impossible dilemma placed before him.
He wanted to see Sakura.
He wanted to go back to the Ryokan. Back to when the only problems he thought he'd have to face were in regards to his stupid heart.
But instead, he's hunched over his desk in the Chunin office, trying to drown out his screaming thoughts for five minutes. Five god-damn minutes. All he needs is 300 seconds of uninterrupted silence to figure out what the fuck he's going to do.
A faceless office clerk passes by his desk, dropping off a new stack of applications. Shikamaru stares down, eyes unseeing. They glaze over the messy handwriting of some kid applying for the next round of exams.
Who was he kidding. He could take the rest of his life to ponder his predicament and he'd still have no idea what to do. His Hokage's voice echoes in his head, filtering out the noises of the busy reception hall.
"The call to serve has been made. You can answer yes, or you can answer no. Either way, you must answer."
Shikamaru had heard a facsimile of this speech several times before from several people in his life. Asuma, his mother, even Ino on the rare occasion. All of them at one point or another had sat him down to question why he insisted on squandering his potential. Tsunade's call to action was nothing he hadn't heard before. The crisis that befell him now was the fact that, no matter what he chose, he would be giving up something priceless.
This was a train to fail scenario.
On the one hand, if he chose to accept the Board of Directors position, he'd be putting his entire life on hold. Not just for a bit, but for five years.
Gone would be his afternoons cloud gazing in the meadow behind his home. There would be no evenings spent around the dinner table drinking iced tea while his parents cooked. He wouldn't be able to watch them bicker in the way people madly in love do. He'd have to say goodbye to trainings with his teammates, to long thoughtful conversations over a cigarette with Asuma.
He'd be thrust into an environment where nothing would be familiar, and nothing would be his own.
His days would be spent constantly traveling, overseeing the construction of new medical clinics and dealing with petty staffing problems. The traveling meant there would be no home base in which to establish a routine. No familiar restaurant whose menu he could learn the ins and out of properly. There would be nobody there to send his food back for him when he inevitably hated it.
Because for the next five years, he would be alone. He'd be working with complete strangers with whom he'd have no chance of befriending because he would be Chief of Operations. His life would become a series of handshake deals and bullshit problems to overcome. The only company he would have would be his own.
It was his nightmare of adulthood coming to claim him with a fancy job title and responsibilities.
On the other hand, he could decline the position. He could save himself from misery…and Sakura would still be gone. She'd take everything else he loved about Konoha with her, and still he'd be alone.
Five years in a foreign hell, or five years without his best friend.
It didn't matter what he chose when both his choices were doomed.
"Nara, where are those graduation statistics I asked for?"
Hi boss had the unique ability to appear out of nowhere precisely when Shikamaru least wanted to see him.
He blinks out of his spiraling thoughts, realizing he's been staring at the same application for the last 15 minutes. "You mean the consolidated report from the last three exams? I put that on your desk last night." Technically, it had been 1 in the morning. He'd been using paperwork to distract himself from obsessing over his pink haired paramour.
"No, the thing you put on my desk last night was a piece of shit." His boss's raised voice cuts through the din of the office, slowing the already lethargic afternoon to a complete standstill. "I asked for a clean, simplified report. What you turned in was a convoluted mess with so many statistics I couldn't even read the god damn thing." His boss takes an admittedly oversized file out from under his arm, slamming it onto the corner of Shikamaru's desk. The office goes dead silent as the papers scatter everywhere.
"Do it again, and do it right this time."
Shikamaru wasn't known in the office for talking back. He wasn't known for having a temper or putting out excellent work. He wasn't really known for anything, actually. He ran his job the way he ran the rest of his life: firmly in the middle of the road. Nothing outstanding, nothing mediocre. He showed up, did the bare minimum required, then clocked out at exactly 5pm.
So it was somewhat understandable that when the one time he'd gone above and beyond, he'd expected a hint of recognition. Maybe not outright praise, per say...But he hadn't expected to be publicly belittled in the middle of the reception office.
The silence around him ticks on. His shoulders bare the suddenly weight of the dozen pairs of eyes now fixed on him. Out in the lobby, test applicants have stopped filling out their applications. They have become unwilling witnesses to his public execution.
His coworkers shrink away into the shadows. It's not unusual for their boss to lay into them like this. Today it's just Shikamaru's turn.
His boss turns away, retreating to the back hall. He doesn't wait for Shikamaru to respond. He never does, he just barks and demands and expects to be obeyed without the need for civilities like reciprocated respect.
But if this asshole thought he could make an example of Shikamaru, he'd picked the wrong fucking day to do it.
It's with a detached ambivalence that he watches his shadows slither out across the carpet. His boss's gait staggers when Shikamaru makes connection, taking his shadow hostage and compelling him to turn around. Is this what people refer to as an out of body experience? It's like he's watching a stage play unfold before him.
The office atmosphere flips from tense to electric as the onlookers watch in morbid fascination. No one moves to stop Shikamaru as he makes his boss walk back to him. Shikamaru meets him in the center of the crowd.
And then, because maybe he's finally snapped, Shikamaru watches as his shadows force his boss to bended a knee. They force him to pick up the cover letter from his report. The mans clubbed hands, trembling with rage, are powerless to resist his ancestral Jutsu. It's sad that he even tries.
With a slow precision that doesn't match his rage, Shikamaru make his boss fold up the cover sheet and stuff it deep into the pads of his cheeks. His eyes are a deep venom that declares a blood feud, but still he can not stop what Shikamaru has started.
He stuffs two more pages into his cheeks until they are suitably distended.
"You're right." Shikamaru said simply. There is no rage or emotion in his voice. He lets go of his Shadow Clutch and reaches out a hand. He pats his boss lightly on his paper-stuffed cheek, the way you would console a petulant child. "Clearly I'm not good enough for this job. I quit."
The resounding silence that fills the room hits louder than a bomb tag.
And with that, Shikamaru turns on his heels and makes his disinterested exit. Regardless of what he decides to do next, whether he accepts the Daimyo's job or rejects it, he isn't going to waste his time working here anymore.
When he steps out into the bustling street, he finally feels the knife of hesitation.
Fuck, he'd really gone too far. He'd just used his Jutsu on a civilian. At the same time, he hadn't submitted that man to any abuse he hadn't already inflicted on all the others...
Shikamaru is just about to turn around and attempt some damage control when the door to the Chunin office jingles. And then again, and then again.
Because every one of his coworkers is walking out of the office, patting each other on the back or talking in animated tones.
"Fuck that guy, Shikamaru." On of them says to him in passing. Shikamaru recognizes the man as Hiro from the accounting department. "I've been telling myself I'm going to quit for year."
"Me too. We should have all left sooner." Another office clerk chimes in. "But man, what a way to go!"
"Wait until the higher ups hear about the walk out-" Another voice, and then another.
But Shikamaru doesn't hear the rest of the praises called to him from several others. He doesn't hear anything at all.
Because finally, away from that hellscape of his cubicle, the turmoil of his mind clears.
Maybe some problems couldn't be resolved by just thinking about them. Maybe sometime you had to start with an action, any action, and go from there.
'Winging it.' Asuma calls it. Shikamaru knows what he has to do.
The sun is just beginning to track its long path down blow the tree line. Early evening is approaching. All around him, people are getting out of work and heading off to for drinks at the bar.
Shikamaru decides he doesn't care what Tsunade says, or what her intentions might have been. He decides he isn't going to make this decision alone.
He needs to see Sakura.
Shoring up the dregs of his confidence, Shikamaru pours himself into the growing flow of foot traffic. He makes his way towards Sakura's apartment. Hopefully, he will find her there and they can have a chance to talk. If he doesn't find her there, he will track her down. He's determined to tell her everything, to give her the benefit of informed consent. He refuses to make this decision without her.
Their time together in Suna had made them more than just potential lover. They had become their own sort of team. The kind where he was the plan, and she was the follow through.
It's Sakura's words that float through his head now. Something she'd said when Tsunade had told her there was no way a bill like hers would ever get passed.
"If I can't find a way, then I'll make one."
That was what they were going to do now. They would find a way, together.
The memory makes Shikamaru light with hope. Because if anyone could figure a way out of this...it was going to be them.