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Teamwork 3 - chapter 9 - scene 2
I've been tweaking this one for a month and I don't think it's going to help if I keep tweaking. But aaaaa so nervous about it. .__.;;;
Previous part.
The medic-nin had tried to chase Sasuke out of the room at first, but Sakura shrugged and said she didn't mind, so Sasuke spent a half-hour watching an old guy lift up his teammate's shirt and feel up her stomach and belly. At some point he even pressed a palm down her shorts, against her pubis. Sasuke just watched.
The guy was from Konoha, cleared by Tsunade, so he had some idea of the state of Sakura's health, the whole situation. About the fetus.
The baby.
'The rumors were wrong. It isn't Naruto-kun's. It's yours.'
He knew why his brother believed it. Because he assumed Sasuke believed it, from the way he'd thrown himself on Sakura to shield her.
Sasuke didn't believe. He didn't have enough luck to dare.
He just... hoped.
But hope was too nice a word, too soft. Yearning, maybe. Craving. It was the kind of wanting that hurt.
He shook his head, closed his eyes for a few long seconds, opened them to stare at Sakura so his mind wouldn't drift again. She was getting dressed with quick, short gestures, jaw twitching every time the cast on her arm got in her way. Her eyes were still flat, still walled off.
'Charge', he'd told her, and she'd attacked Kisame, outclassed as she was.
"So?" she said, not looking at the old medic-nin.
The man was frowning, looking at his chart. Not a deep frown, but not an optimal expression either. Sasuke fisted his hands deep in his pockets.
"The fetus is alive and healthy enough for now, but there is no telling whether it was altered and how." A short, irritated sigh. "Just the sort of problems we were trying to prevent in the first place... At any rate, whatever happened, it's too late to fix it. Just mind you don't make it worse. No more of that chakra."
She gave a terse nod, rolling the waistband of her shorts back up one-handed. Sasuke stepped up to her and tugged her tangled t-shirt down, so it would cover her hip under the cracked arm where she couldn't reach easy.
"The bone?" she asked.
"It's not good for your calcium levels if I speed it up any more. Double your daily supplements and come back in a week."
"Alright." A nod. A perfunctory "Thank you." She turned to leave. Sasuke followed.
Down the corridor, and to the staircase. This floor had been blocked for the second test's casualties, preventing anyone but teammates and teachers to come in, but nothing stopped them from leaving. Naruto would be in debriefing for another forty-five minutes at the very least.
She went. Kakashi was with Naruto, so he followed. Out in the street, and up the hill, and up that cliff path they'd raced down, back from the first test, a few centuries ago. White and purple flowers dancing in the wind, spilling all over the rocks, the sea unfurling blue-green as far as the eye could see.
He could see rage in every line of her body, the set of her shoulders, how straight and proud her spine was. He'd never seen it from the outside, but it was familiar anyway.
She stopped at a little bend in the path, the jutting rocks hiding them from view. She turned to face the sea.
Picked up a loose rock, and hurled it as far as it would go. Sasuke didn't track its fall. She was already bending down to pick up another.
He stood on the path and watched her throw rock after rock. At some point she started to grunt with the effort, a quiet little noise with each throw that grew progressively louder; after that, it was her lip, curling up from a pressed-down line into a snarl.
"Shit."
Throw. She was a little unbalanced by the cast, movements too wide and not efficient enough, but it wasn't like she was bothering to aim anyway.
She was so angry. He had nothing against that fact, didn't begrudge her it; it was just strange, that rage, the depth of it.
Sasuke wasn't angry. He'd tried to be, at Naruto for being so listless, at Sakura for leaving them alone together, at Kakashi because he was there and then because he wasn't, at Kon. He wasn't angry. He wished he was.
It would have been easier to handle than the nameless thing churning in his guts, the terrifying thing he'd been trying to ignore since the jounin-sensei arrived on the battlefield and carried them back out.
Sakura's anger took up all the space, and he couldn't hold onto his own anymore. Couldn't fan it huge and roaring until he could pretend anger was the only thing he felt, until he was deaf to the things it covered up.
"Did you see him?" asked Sakura. She stared at the horizon. Her face was still hard, but there was a pinched, brittle look at the corner of her eyes which told him that she didn't want to cry, that she might anyway.
She meant Naruto, of course, and of course Sasuke had seen him, and it made him sick with frustration and denial, he couldn't stand it. Naruto wasn't allowed to be broken.
"He'll be better when he has things to do," he said, parroting Kakashi and not believing it any more now that he was the one saying it. "He's had nothing to do but brood. He needs to move around."
Sakura didn't even look like she was paying attention. It was a little strange not to have her hanging on his every word.
"If I'd been stronger," she said.
He fell silent. He knew where this one went.
"If I'd been faster. Known more jutsu."
She lifted her chin, eyes glittering with rage and tears.
"If I wasn't so weak, wasn't a toy, wasn't someone you can ignore!"
She was screaming now, until her voice went raw.
"I will never freeze up again. I will never be too slow or weak again. I will never be ignored again! Never, never, NEVER!"
Sasuke watched her, and... He didn't know. He didn't know what he felt there. Something soft, that ached a little. He stepped closer, shoulder to shoulder. Standing with her. He thought he could do that from now on. He thought it would be fine by him.
She trembled with a swallowed sob, chin still up, eyes glittering with more than anger now. He was the one who touched her first, his hand on her back. She turned in his arms and burrowed there and he held on.
He could understand that feeling, that need to make oneself into someone who could never be dismissed.
He caught the word emerging, floating there, in a corner of his mind. 'My wife.' He weighed the word, the notion.
Alright. Yes.
Despite the still-unnamed thing curling in the pit of his stomach he didn't think he had ever thought so clearly. He tilted his head, rested his cheek against her hair as she fought not to cry, as a few hot tears slipped through anyway. He could see hardy little flowers, and torn rocks, and the sea.
The thing was, when he stopped lying, stopped hiding...
He already knew how it would all untangle, once he grabbed the end of the string and started following it. When he'd faced his brother, when Itachi had moved to destroy the pipeline -- to kill Sakura -- he'd already chosen. He'd chosen again when he thought he wouldn't mind if Naruto hated him forever for trading him against Gaara. It was just a matter of allowing it all to unravel, now, to make himself push away the last of the fear and admit it.
He already knew.
His brother. His revenge. His family, waiting, betrayed and ended, waiting for him to even the score, to make sure their murderer didn't get away with it. All that he owed his parents.
All that he owed his brother. ('and when you have the same eyes as I...')
His... maybe-child. Maybe Naruto's child.
His wife. His future children -- the ones that might come after this first one. The ones he'd have with her, and the one they'd have with Naruto, and.
Their future children.
He closed his eyes, turned his face into Sakura's neck.
His brother.
'You and I will always be brothers. I will always be there for you, even if only as an obstacle for you to overcome.'
'Even if you hate me. That's what big brothers are for.'
"You and I will always be brothers..."
"--Sasuke-kun?"
She pulled back a little bit, blinked at him with eyes reddened but stubbornly not crying. His whisper had been too quiet; she hadn't caught the words. Sasuke shook his head slowly, unwound his arms until only their fingers were touching.
"Come on. Something I've got to tell the two of you."
He led her back down the path, fingers interlaced with hers in a white-knuckled tangle.
Previous part.
The medic-nin had tried to chase Sasuke out of the room at first, but Sakura shrugged and said she didn't mind, so Sasuke spent a half-hour watching an old guy lift up his teammate's shirt and feel up her stomach and belly. At some point he even pressed a palm down her shorts, against her pubis. Sasuke just watched.
The guy was from Konoha, cleared by Tsunade, so he had some idea of the state of Sakura's health, the whole situation. About the fetus.
The baby.
'The rumors were wrong. It isn't Naruto-kun's. It's yours.'
He knew why his brother believed it. Because he assumed Sasuke believed it, from the way he'd thrown himself on Sakura to shield her.
Sasuke didn't believe. He didn't have enough luck to dare.
He just... hoped.
But hope was too nice a word, too soft. Yearning, maybe. Craving. It was the kind of wanting that hurt.
He shook his head, closed his eyes for a few long seconds, opened them to stare at Sakura so his mind wouldn't drift again. She was getting dressed with quick, short gestures, jaw twitching every time the cast on her arm got in her way. Her eyes were still flat, still walled off.
'Charge', he'd told her, and she'd attacked Kisame, outclassed as she was.
"So?" she said, not looking at the old medic-nin.
The man was frowning, looking at his chart. Not a deep frown, but not an optimal expression either. Sasuke fisted his hands deep in his pockets.
"The fetus is alive and healthy enough for now, but there is no telling whether it was altered and how." A short, irritated sigh. "Just the sort of problems we were trying to prevent in the first place... At any rate, whatever happened, it's too late to fix it. Just mind you don't make it worse. No more of that chakra."
She gave a terse nod, rolling the waistband of her shorts back up one-handed. Sasuke stepped up to her and tugged her tangled t-shirt down, so it would cover her hip under the cracked arm where she couldn't reach easy.
"The bone?" she asked.
"It's not good for your calcium levels if I speed it up any more. Double your daily supplements and come back in a week."
"Alright." A nod. A perfunctory "Thank you." She turned to leave. Sasuke followed.
Down the corridor, and to the staircase. This floor had been blocked for the second test's casualties, preventing anyone but teammates and teachers to come in, but nothing stopped them from leaving. Naruto would be in debriefing for another forty-five minutes at the very least.
She went. Kakashi was with Naruto, so he followed. Out in the street, and up the hill, and up that cliff path they'd raced down, back from the first test, a few centuries ago. White and purple flowers dancing in the wind, spilling all over the rocks, the sea unfurling blue-green as far as the eye could see.
He could see rage in every line of her body, the set of her shoulders, how straight and proud her spine was. He'd never seen it from the outside, but it was familiar anyway.
She stopped at a little bend in the path, the jutting rocks hiding them from view. She turned to face the sea.
Picked up a loose rock, and hurled it as far as it would go. Sasuke didn't track its fall. She was already bending down to pick up another.
He stood on the path and watched her throw rock after rock. At some point she started to grunt with the effort, a quiet little noise with each throw that grew progressively louder; after that, it was her lip, curling up from a pressed-down line into a snarl.
"Shit."
Throw. She was a little unbalanced by the cast, movements too wide and not efficient enough, but it wasn't like she was bothering to aim anyway.
She was so angry. He had nothing against that fact, didn't begrudge her it; it was just strange, that rage, the depth of it.
Sasuke wasn't angry. He'd tried to be, at Naruto for being so listless, at Sakura for leaving them alone together, at Kakashi because he was there and then because he wasn't, at Kon. He wasn't angry. He wished he was.
It would have been easier to handle than the nameless thing churning in his guts, the terrifying thing he'd been trying to ignore since the jounin-sensei arrived on the battlefield and carried them back out.
Sakura's anger took up all the space, and he couldn't hold onto his own anymore. Couldn't fan it huge and roaring until he could pretend anger was the only thing he felt, until he was deaf to the things it covered up.
"Did you see him?" asked Sakura. She stared at the horizon. Her face was still hard, but there was a pinched, brittle look at the corner of her eyes which told him that she didn't want to cry, that she might anyway.
She meant Naruto, of course, and of course Sasuke had seen him, and it made him sick with frustration and denial, he couldn't stand it. Naruto wasn't allowed to be broken.
"He'll be better when he has things to do," he said, parroting Kakashi and not believing it any more now that he was the one saying it. "He's had nothing to do but brood. He needs to move around."
Sakura didn't even look like she was paying attention. It was a little strange not to have her hanging on his every word.
"If I'd been stronger," she said.
He fell silent. He knew where this one went.
"If I'd been faster. Known more jutsu."
She lifted her chin, eyes glittering with rage and tears.
"If I wasn't so weak, wasn't a toy, wasn't someone you can ignore!"
She was screaming now, until her voice went raw.
"I will never freeze up again. I will never be too slow or weak again. I will never be ignored again! Never, never, NEVER!"
Sasuke watched her, and... He didn't know. He didn't know what he felt there. Something soft, that ached a little. He stepped closer, shoulder to shoulder. Standing with her. He thought he could do that from now on. He thought it would be fine by him.
She trembled with a swallowed sob, chin still up, eyes glittering with more than anger now. He was the one who touched her first, his hand on her back. She turned in his arms and burrowed there and he held on.
He could understand that feeling, that need to make oneself into someone who could never be dismissed.
He caught the word emerging, floating there, in a corner of his mind. 'My wife.' He weighed the word, the notion.
Alright. Yes.
Despite the still-unnamed thing curling in the pit of his stomach he didn't think he had ever thought so clearly. He tilted his head, rested his cheek against her hair as she fought not to cry, as a few hot tears slipped through anyway. He could see hardy little flowers, and torn rocks, and the sea.
The thing was, when he stopped lying, stopped hiding...
He already knew how it would all untangle, once he grabbed the end of the string and started following it. When he'd faced his brother, when Itachi had moved to destroy the pipeline -- to kill Sakura -- he'd already chosen. He'd chosen again when he thought he wouldn't mind if Naruto hated him forever for trading him against Gaara. It was just a matter of allowing it all to unravel, now, to make himself push away the last of the fear and admit it.
He already knew.
His brother. His revenge. His family, waiting, betrayed and ended, waiting for him to even the score, to make sure their murderer didn't get away with it. All that he owed his parents.
All that he owed his brother. ('and when you have the same eyes as I...')
His... maybe-child. Maybe Naruto's child.
His wife. His future children -- the ones that might come after this first one. The ones he'd have with her, and the one they'd have with Naruto, and.
Their future children.
He closed his eyes, turned his face into Sakura's neck.
His brother.
'You and I will always be brothers. I will always be there for you, even if only as an obstacle for you to overcome.'
'Even if you hate me. That's what big brothers are for.'
"You and I will always be brothers..."
"--Sasuke-kun?"
She pulled back a little bit, blinked at him with eyes reddened but stubbornly not crying. His whisper had been too quiet; she hadn't caught the words. Sasuke shook his head slowly, unwound his arms until only their fingers were touching.
"Come on. Something I've got to tell the two of you."
He led her back down the path, fingers interlaced with hers in a white-knuckled tangle.
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