AN: I am still not completely sold on this chapter, but it’s better than what I had written before, so I’ll go with it. Unedited. Also, burgeoning hints of NaruSaku in this chapter and this chapter only, but it’s not endgame, and it’s there for a reason.
Warnings: Description of panic attacks and associated symptoms; somewhat racist/ignorant comments from OCs, also lead-up to a physical assault which may cause victims of robbery/harassment/assault to possibly feel triggered. You have been warned.
Sakura’s acceptance to Harvard is a shock, a sudden upset to Sasuke’s carefully crafted future which he didn’t see coming and didn’t think to prepare for. She never even told him she had applied, and whenever they’ve discussed the future lately it’s gravitated around the all-but-established understanding that they would be attending Keio together.
To know that she’s thinking of going somewhere else, he is overcome by an instant, acute sense of panic.
Which is why when Sakura asks him for advice, he has to fight his first instinct, which is to tell her the one thing he knows would stop her from going: that she won’t be able to handle it. Sakura has always had trouble with self-confidence, and if he were to tell her he doubted her abilities, she would instantly abandon the idea.
Within a half-second of thinking it, he immediately experiences a pit form in his belly and a shiver of wrongness up his spine.
Sakura is kind and good and smart, and she is more than capable of succeeding wherever she goes. One day she is going to be a world-renowned doctor, and she should go where she can get the best education possible. More than that, he thinks she would thrive in any of the college’s programs. If anyone’s happiness is important to him, it’s Sakura’s.
Though she isn’t aware of his mental lapse, he tries to erase it by immediately telling her that she has to go.
Summary: The mattress under his body was comforting, but not as much as her warmth. And he needed it, just as much as she did.
A/N: So thanks to this review I received on ff.net, I decided to change a few things in this story and I added a few things too. I hope this edited version is better than the previous one.
Warmth Like Home
It was one of the dark and cold nights of winter that the silhouette of two human figures could be seen, walking on the road covered with snow, in a small village near the land of lightening. Chilled, light gusts of wind; blowing their hair, and the cloaks that covered their bodies. It was a quiet night may be because it was already past midnight and every living soul had already gotten into their comfy beds and slept, saving themselves from the immense cold. The voice produced by the friction between the ground and their feet being the only source of sound.
But the dark of the night and the freezing temperature didn’t bother them at all, for one of them was the last surviving Uchiha and the other one was the strongest kunoichi of Konoha. Their steps were steady, currently heading towards a place to spend the night in, perhaps a cabin or a small cottage out in the snowy plains.
They kept quiet, not uttering a single word, just enjoying the cold wind- well, one of them was. Haruno Sakura seemed to be fond of the contemporary atmosphere, a melodious sound being hummed by her, her steps like a 4 year old kid, small jumps and dancing patterns, her hands would occasionally sneak out of her pale-white cloak and touch the falling snow flakes, and the heat of her palms would melt them away.
He kept on watching the same scene repeat over and over again, his eyes firmly kept on the woman next to him, memorizing everything that occurred at that instance. Uchiha Sasuke was never a fan of cold, let alone snow fall. As a child, he would avoid going out during winter, hide under the warm blankets, in the hugs offered by his beloved brother or the warmth of his mother’s lap. He smiled at the memory, feeling the slightest of pain in his chest.
“Sasuke-kun?” Sakura’s voice made him break free from his thoughts as he saw her green jades looking into his dark pearls, “I can see some light over there.” she said and he followed her eyes to a place at some distance from their current location.
SasuSaku Month 2017
Day 5: Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Sakura doesn’t sleep and when she does she wakes up drenched
in sweat, screaming, and crying. Sasuke holds her when she wakes, comforts her
as well as he can and pretend he doesn’t know any better when she tries to ease
his own worries with a forced smile. “It’s just a bad dream, everything’s okay.”
But he knows.
He knows blood plagues her dreams, that she’s tormented by
the lives she couldn’t save during the war. He carries a similar burden.
He also knows that when she isn’t at home she in the
hospital, slaving herself and doing everything in her power to save everyone
who passes through her care while hoping to make amends with those she couldn’t
save.
Slowly she’s killing herself and Sasuke’s stood by and let
it happen.
It’s yet another night as she wakes up gasping for air,
tears fall from her cheeks. Sasuke is quick to move, to take her into his arms
and hold her close whispering empty promises into her ear. “Everything will be
alright, it’ll get better.”
Her sobs quiet for a moment and she draws back to look into
his eyes. “When?” She asks, her voice a little desperate. “How?” She asks
again.
“I’ll get you away from here. We can go village from village
and help those who need it, we can go all over the country and round again
until there are no more nightmares.” He knows they only need to ask Naruto and
he’ll grant them a leave.
Sakura nods and for the first time in a long time he sees
hope in her eyes. But there’s also fear that it won’t work. “It’ll work.” He
promises, certainty in his voice. “And when we’re back we can start a new life.”
It’s late… and real life is making my writer’s block worse. Oh well… another second person fanfic because I find it nice to write~ it’s also posted at FF 😀
***
You gave your all… but it obviously wasn’t enough.
You failed, once again.
Disappointment… pain… everything hurts.
But nothing hurts more than your own heart right now.
All strength decided to leave your tired, overexerted body.
The seal started to recede, and gravity pulls you down. As your eyes started to
close, you expect the crumbly, hard ground to be your bed.
Only it didn’t. For halfway before your fall, a wall caught
your form.
No.
There was no wall. Only Sasuke.
Your Sasuke-kun.
He secured you to his warm body by placing a firm – yet oh
so gentle – hand on your arm. With the last of your strength, you looked up to
him.
Beautiful, mismatched orbs in all its glory, hypnotizing you…
drowning you… drawing you in.
He looks at you intensely and you notice it is very much
different than all the times your eyes locked with each other. No, there was
something else in this contact. His eyes seem to search your soul… but it
became a window to his own, for there were words never spoken – only felt.
Lean on me.
Here, close to him, eyes unable to look away, you understood
his silence.
“How did you…?”
“This is my power. I can instantly swap places, appearing in
a dimension far from myself. There’s a limit to the distance but…
Thanks to you I made it.”
No words left you as Obito and Sasuke spoke to each other. Then you realize, you simply just can’t. You are unsure if the chakra depletion is making your mind
cloudy and delusional, but you cannot deny a spark of something foreign in his
orbs. Concern, perhaps? For a few precious seconds, it was only you and him in
this time and dimension.
You smiled as you close your eyes. He held you closer and
more than anything, you want time to stop – to make this moment last forever.
Every fiber of your being knows that there is nowhere in this world you’d
rather be than right here.
Warnings: indirect PTSD, portrayal of night terrors.
Fellas, I wanted this to be short and sweet!! Enjoy!!
“Nii-san! Nii-san! Look at this bird!” A small, chubby child is skipping over a strong tree root, carefree and bewildered by the bird of fluffy, brown feathers, tinged with a daring yellow.
“It’s beautiful Sasuke. Did you hurt it?” The elder child has the eyes of an ancient remnant, like the relative of the family that talks to woods, spirits, and rarely to humans. “Of course not Nii-san! I would never hurt it!“The smaller, wood-woven child, hair and eyes akin to the ones of the elder, color of crow’s feathers, eyes coal and flamboyant remnant of ash.
"Sasuke… let’s go back home…” The older boy becomes alert of something younger one can sense. “But Nii-sa-”
“Sasuke.” It’s a calm interruption, nearly terrifying for such a young soul. The younger’s eyes are open wide, his small, fragile hand picking up the bird. He only ever wanted to spend time with his big brother. Large eyes fill with soft, warm tears which mesh and mold on the curve of his eyelid. He will never let them fall.
The scene shifts.
The smaller boy is in a house – not his – colder, checking a stray cupboard. It’s all so disgusting – revolting, forbidden. He is raiding an another house for money, the Third said that everything the Uchiha once possesed, is now his. He wants to cry. There’s a stain – a big bloodstain. He just blinks furiously at it, hoping it will dissapear, hoping it was all a HORRIBLE GENJUTSU BROTHER WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS WHAT WRONG DID THEY DO YOU BROTHER BROTHER NO
The pain just doesn’t stop. It… ebbs… slowly… he’s grateful once again, as he is crying on the floor, for the hatred that accumulates in him, the suffering and loneliness, because he will be the one to avenge them: he will be the one to set them free as the blood moon rises once again and he remembers the harshness of multiple Tsukuyomi… how cruel his eyes seem when decorated with the cursed Mangekyou Sharingan, and how there is something watery on the paper? Pavement? What? When did he grip the money and started running out of the house, stumbling through the Uchiha district.
When did his small hands that once gripped the dying bird, passing it over to his caring mother, reach over to the doorhandle, opening the wretched house, with nobody to come home to, say hello to, give dango, or a change of clothes, or newspapers to?
In the middle of the Hokage office he somehow entered is a boy – the older one, whose whole body looks more fragile than that of a dying bird; and he is bloody, looking like an ugly God, marred with the aftermath of wars.
“Sasuke. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I wanted to come.” Small child is so insecure as the elder brother looms over him, he’s significantly taller than him now.
“Please, leave. You are not supposed to know about this; you know the risk.”
“Nii-san, just please-”
“Tsukuyomi!”
Cold. Ice cold sweat is all Sasuke wakes up to.
That, and a hysterical woman.
She seems like a beauty straight out of his dreams – for a nanosecond, until all his senses come to him and he realizes she is calling his name, wanting him to get a grip on himself.
He really tries to.
Rising, he admiteddly worsens his dizzyness caused by the nightmare, crushing her into his arms.
Pink. Fresh-scented. Lime and sweet corn. Skin slightly salty, pleasantly warm from sleep. Breasts soft, the ones he wants to fall asleep on when the fear passes.
“Sssh, Sasuke-kun, I’m here, you’re alright, it’s fine. Ssh…” They just rock, seemingly pointless, but it calms all the waves of Sasuke’s torn mind, his silent storm being in raw pain that ends up swallowing him, but not before Sakura’s hand touches his face, that one touch gentler than the world has been to him his entire life times trillion, pulling him away from darkness. Her legs locking his thighs in place – eyes confident and clear, as she allows him to grip her harder – to lean and depend on her strength and warmth completely.
“Sasuke-kun…”, she whispers after a small infinity, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” He growls, angry and hurt, like a wild tiger, clawing on edges of sanity. Anger arises and replaces fear and smaller, softer emotions. He turns into a hurricane, shoving himself into the crook of Sakura’s neck, breathing heavily as his haze still hasn’t calmed down.
Being a user of a Sharingan has terrifying downsides; photographic memory one possesses leaves indentations in one’s brain. Sasuke’s memories and horrors he saw are worse than most – yet he lives his life normally.
Tries to, really.
Sakura’s presence, warm existence that proves him that he is alive and well, he is good still, he survived, is such a relief that something akin to unadulterated happiness surges through him. He releases her, wanting to smile up at her, an honest smile, but only a dry expression stays, her sunny expression awaiting on the other side of the stare.
His Sun is there the next morning, too.
She will wear his mark, his clan’s crest, as of tomorrow.
[ sasusaku month – day 5: blood, sweat and tears ]
Sakura’s rounds at the hospital had become longer and tiring after the war. Even with Tsunade down, Sakura continued to show up day after day to help clean up the mess that was created. She finds that some of her patients had lost a limb, or suffered from flashbacks, and even though she tries her hardest, there’s some that she’ll never be able to heal.
One of those patients is Sasuke Uchiha; the boy who turned to darkness for guidance and lost his way on the path to revenge. After the war, both him and Naruto had been rushed to the hospital immediately and put under care of the most respectable medics.
Summary: Sakura has a rough day at the hospital, and Sasuke is a sweet awkward bean.
Rating: literally the fluffiest fluff ever to fluff
Notes: I screamed writing this. Multiple times. Also, I did most of it while waiting around at Disneyland on my Grad Nite. So there’s that.
It’s been a long day. Sakura curses under her breath as she stumbles yet again on another uneven cobblestone. Pulling a double shift after a major surgery had not been wise, but what else was she to do? With the recent flu outbreak, the hospital was already overcrowded and understaffed, not to mention that five of her best had come down with the sickness. Add to that the surprise return of a very battered ANBU team and no less than six idiot Genin with assorted broken limbs and you have one very overworked, incredibly stressed out Uchiha Sakura.
The woman sighs, running a hand through her hair, and continues homeward—the Uchiha family’s house is not too far from the hospital, but far enough that Sakura contemplates using her remaining chakra to simply teleport into her bed and pass out. She decides against it in the end, on the grounds that she needs a shower and a nice meal before crashing.
Sasuke looks up as his wife’s chakra enters range. It’s barely there, and flickering like a candle in a hurricane, but it nevertheless brings a small smile to his face. He clicks his tongue gently and opens his left eye. The Rinnegan pulses, and in an instant he is gone.
Sakura is halfway home when an odd popping noise sounds in front of her, and a warm, familiar chakra fills the air. She looks up with a tired grin. “Rinnegan? I thought I told you not to use it when you don’t need to, anata.”
He crosses the distance between them in three long strides, his lone hand taking one of her own. His grip is strong as always, but there is love in his firm hold. Quietly, Sasuke murmurs, “And I told you not to exhaust yourself.”
Sakura’s smile widens, and she pulls him closer, resting her head on his chest. He lets go of her hand and slips his arm around her waist, drawing her body into his. Her spine curves. She can hear his steady heartbeat. “Using your doujutsu too much is bad for you,” she whispers, as his arm tightens and his face falls to her hair. Sasuke lightly kisses the top of her head, his mismatched eyes closing. “So is using all of your chakra.”
Sakura giggles and traces her green fingernails over her husband’s back. He’s incredibly warm, radiating heat like a furnace in the cooling autumn air. His chakra wraps around her, enveloping her, and her eyes grow heavier the longer she stays with her cheek to his collarbone. "We should get home,“ she says with a tired laugh, “unless you want me passing out on you in the street.”
He huffs into her hair. With a single, fluid movement, Sasuke adjusts himself to support more of her weight, and Sakura is struck by an overwhelming wave of affection for her quiet, awkward husband. His chakra flares, and their surroundings dissolve into amorphous blobs of color before reforming with the same pop she’s come to recognize over the years.
A cutting board and some vegetables lie abandoned on the kitchen counter, but Sasuke guides her into one of the chairs around the dinner table instead. The pressure of his hand on her hip is comforting in its familiarity. “I’ll run a bath and finish dinner. Wait a few minutes.” He disappears down the hall, and moments later the sound of running water fills the house. Sakura sighs and leans back in the chair, half-ready to fall asleep then and there. Sasuke flits back into the kitchen, quiet as a ghost, his chakra bright in her mind’s eye. A few shuffling noises later, he’s chopping the vegetables again, the knife moving quickly on the cutting board. “Where’s Sara?” She asks, cracking her eyes open in time to catch him turning his head away from her. Sakura resists the urge to laugh. He really is awkward. “She has an overnight mission. It was assigned this morning.”
His unspoken message is clear. They have the night to themselves. Normally Sakura would try and capitalize on this rare opportunity (and Sasuke, for his part, never complains), but tonight she’s too exhausted. Suddenly, her husband puts the knife down, turns on his heel, and makes his way back down the hall. The water cuts off, and he’s by her side in a heartbeat. His hand is warm as it slides around her back again, his arm taking most of her weight as he helps her stand. No matter how many times he does this, no matter how long they’ve been married, the little things he does for her still shake her to the core. He’s a sweetheart when his walls come down, not that any of their friends would believe her if she told them.
Sasuke undresses her slowly, with so much care it almost hurts. It would be sexual if it weren’t for how gently his fingers slip over her skin, how soft his touch is. Sakura could do this herself–she’s not so tired that she can’t undo a zipper or button–but she lets him have his way. It feels nice to be cherished, to be treated as something precious.
She also may or may not enjoy the way he draws her near to unclasp her bra, and the feeling of his body against hers.
Sasuke shifts and his fingers stroke up her neck to comb through her hair, catching slightly on the tangles. Sakura rests her forehead on his shoulder and basks in the moment. He chuckles almost soundlessly and pulls back. “Get in the bath, Sakura.”
“Mmmh. You’re comfy,” she whines. “What if I don’t want to move?” His head drops to rest against the side of her neck, and she feels him smile. “I’ll come back.”
“Fiiiiine,” she says, pressing her lips to his collarbone. He shivers slightly before replying with a kiss to her pulse. Sakura feels her face turn red as he pulls away from her and leaves her to her bath.
Sasuke moves on autopilot while he cooks their dinner. Really, his wife is too cute for her own good. It doesn’t take long for him to finish up; he’d decided on tempura, which was both fast and easy. He piles the food onto a plate and retreats with it to the bathroom.
Sakura lounges in the tub, the ends of her pink hair floating in the water. Her head leans against the wall; she’d fallen asleep, even though he’s only been gone ten minutes. Sasuke sets the plate down beside the tub and crouches next to her. His hand finds the side of her face almost unconsciously, tracing the line of her jaw with a level of intimacy he would’ve found impossible not that long ago. His wife murmurs in her sleep and leans into his touch. A part of Sasuke melts a little. He hates to wake her, but she needs to eat. “Sakura,” he whispers, thumb stroking her cheek, “wake up.” Her eyes slide open reluctantly, then brighten as they focus on him. “Dinner already, anata?”
“Aa.” She moves to get up, but he presses his palm to her shoulder. “I brought it in with me.”
Sakura’s smile crinkles her eyes. It’s something he’ll never get tired of seeing. “Thank you,” she says softly. She shifts, the water rippling around her, to sit up more fully. His gaze automatically darts down. He won’t make this sexual, not when she’s so exhausted.
There’s a moment of silence between them when their eyes meet again. Sasuke feels his cheeks flush, just a little, when her face morphs into what he can only describe as devious. “Sasuke-kun,” she purrs, “will you take off your clothes?”
He chokes on air, both at her use of the suffix and her lascivious tone. He just knows he’s gone completely red in the face. Sakura roars with laughter, her shoulders shaking fiercely. “Oh my god, anata! Your face! I just want to take a bath with you, oh my god…” She peters off into light, airy giggles as Sasuke tries to redirect the blood from his cheeks to the rest of his body. He shakes his head, a smile coming unbidden to his lips. This woman will be the death of him, he thinks, and what a pleasant way to die.
Sakura slides her hands under the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head. He takes care of his pants himself, and she takes a minute to bask in the sight of his well-muscled back. She scoots forward a little as he unabashedly slips in behind her, his chest to her back, his legs around her. The stump of his left arm rests on the side of the tub. She relaxes back into him, and feels rather than sees his hand move for the soap.
She lets him wash her, slowly, gently. The amount of love in his touch never fails to overwhelm her. He’s so, so patient with her. Then her husband moves to her head and Sakura just melts under his fingertips. He’s always been good with his hands, and damn if he doesn’t show it now. He massages shampoo into her hair, nails lightly scraping her scalp in a way that makes her skin tingle. Sakura’s eyes slip closed again, even as she leans into his hand. Sasuke moves to stroke her cheek, and Sakura turns her head. “Mou, anata,” she murmurs into his palm, “you spoil me.”
Her husband, her adorable, incredible husband, kisses the nape of her neck. She feels his faint smile against her skin, and her heart stops beating for a moment. “You can lean on me, you know,” he says. “You don’t always have to support me.”
Let me support you too.
The smile that splits her face is entirely too wide for someone as tired as she is. Sakura scoots forward, ignoring Sasuke’s puzzled grunt, and turns to face him. She doesn’t care that her hair is still covered in suds, or that she has dark circles that take up half her face. In this moment, she just wants to show Sasuke how much his words mean to her.
That, of course, means flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him for all she’s worth. Sasuke, bless him, is half-stiff under her, mostly because he’s still trying to process what exactly just happened. Sakura laughs into his mouth as his muscles loosen up and he tugs her closer. He tastes like warmth and soap—the shampoo in her hair is starting to drip down her face. She starts laughing even harder, until she can’t keep kissing him and has to pull away. Sasuke has the most hilarious expression on his face. He looks torn between disgust at the soap and confusion at her sudden affection. His nose scrunches up a little, like a cat’s, and Sakura presses a light peck to the tip. Then she takes a moment to spit to the side. There’s still soap in her mouth.
Sasuke gives her a small, rather lopsided grin. “You should rinse your hair,” he says, hand coming up to wipe away the shampoo clinging to his forehead. Sakura giggles and lies back, dipping her head in the bathwater and running her fingers through her hair to get rid of all the bubbles. Sasuke watches her quietly, that smile still on his lips, though it’s more muted than before. He probably doesn’t even realize it’s there, she thinks suddenly, followed by god, she loves this man.
Sakura sits up once she’s done only to find Sasuke balancing the plate of lukewarm tempura on the side of the tub. “We forgot dinner,” she chuckles, half to herself, and reaches for a shrimp. Sasuke scoffs. “Hardly the first time.”
“And after you worked so hard on it too, anata,” she laughs teasingly, bopping him on the forehead with her shrimp. Sasuke grunts but doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t take them too long to finish the meal; by that point, Sakura’s momentary burst of energy is completely gone. Her limbs feel like jelly, a hallmark of serious chakra exhaustion, and she’s having trouble keeping her eyes open, let alone holding up her own body weight. That second shift really hadn’t been a good idea. Sakura falls against Sasuke’s chest yet again, perfectly content to stay there listening to his breath and heartbeat while the water around them slowly cools.
Sasuke, however, apparently has different plans. It feels like no time’s passed at all when he shifts beneath her and flares his chakra, the familiar violet glow of his Susano’o arm sparkling off the tiles around them. He gets up in one smooth movement, hooking his arms around her back and knees to take her with him. She fits her chin over his shoulder just in time to see an extra skeletal arm split from the one supporting her in order to grab their towels. Her husband sits her on the bathroom counter and proceeds, with an amount of patience and care that makes her heart sing, to dry her off. His hands rub at her hair through the terrycloth, and Sakura unconsciously tilts her head back. She hears Sasuke snort quietly before he lifts the towel off of her.
He’s always been so economical, Sakura thinks. He dries himself quickly. His rough treatment leaves his hair frizzy, sticking up in places, and in general disarray. She’ll brush it for him in the morning. Sasuke picks her up again and half-shoulders, half-kicks the bathroom door out of the way, footsteps quiet as he pads through to their room.
He slips her under the covers first, kissing her lightly on the forehead before he vanishes into the bathroom again. He reappears a moment later in all his nude glory, their discarded clothes in hand. Sakura takes a minute to appreciate the view; his pale skin is littered with scars, his body bound in bulky, functional muscle, and it’s all hers. Hers to love, to hold, to treasure. She doesn’t realize the trance she’s in until he coughs lightly.
“Done staring?” Sasuke says, half-amused, as Sakura feels her face flame up. One of his eyebrows is raised, and he’s giving her a smirk that says he knows exactly what she’s thinking. A choked noise escapes her. “A-anata!”
Her husband doesn’t reply, instead choosing to lie down facing her. The stump of his left arm twitches as she scoots closer, and he moves to pull her in by the waist. Sakura finds herself cradled against his chest for the umpteenth time that night, his breath light and warm against her forehead. They fall asleep like that, curled into one another comfortably, and as she floats in the limbo between consciousness and sleep, Sakura swears she feels Sasuke whisper something into her hair.
Note: Takes place after the final battle between Naruto and Sasuke, so around chapter 699.
“Sakura I-” Sasuke struggles to speak.
“Just be quiet for now, I’m concentrating.” She continues to stop the bleeding on both his and Naruto’s severed arms.
“I’m sorry.” He finally says, more than he’s ever been.
“For what?” She struggles to keep herself from crying in front of him.
“Everything up till now.” At hearing him say that, she breaks in tears.
“Geez…you better be, you jerk.” She half-heartedly tells him, causing him to feel even more guilty, Naruto to smile, and Kakashi to feel proud. ‘He’s finally back.’
After everyone is freed from the tsukoyomi…
“Come on Naruto.” Kakashi brings him to stand up on his feet, putting Naruto’s non-severed arm around him. While Sakura gently helps Sasuke stand on his two feet and lets him lean his head on her shoulder as she wraps his non-severed arm around her neck. Feeling overwhelmed Sasuke begins to cry quietly. He honestly felt like he deserved to die.
He feels Sakura squeeze his hand gently in reassurance. “Shh..its all over now Sasuke-kun. I’m here for you now.” She tells him, which makes him lean closer to her, to which she gladly welcomed.
driving through the city to the temple station cries into the leather seat and susie knows the baby was a family man but the world has got him down on his knees —hurts “wonderful life”
SasuSaku Month 