He was hot. He reached behind his neck, gripped the collar of his shirt and worked harder than he should have needed to to pull it over his head before throwing it toward the foot of the bed.
The edge of the bed sank down beside him.
Her hand was gently rubbing on his chest.
He wanted her to touch him, intimately. To caress and squeeze and stroke but he knew she wouldn’t, not with him in this state. A breath later and the urge was gone as fast as it had come.
“Hey, don’t fall asleep yet I want you to sit up and drink some water for me.”
Sitting at the moment seemed a monumental task what with the way the room was slowly spinning. But for her he would accept any challenge, defeat all the Kage and the Ten-tailed beast by himself, take on any God or Goddess that dained to prevent her happiness. He blinked a few long blinks to refocus on her face before reaching out to cup her cheek. He felt like smiling.
He was definitely smiling.
How long had he been smiling?
Probably since she’d joined him at the tavern. She was so beautiful by firelight. There hadn’t been any fire or candles there, but by the fire was one of the first places he’d really let himself take in her beauty. She was beautiful no matter the lighting.
She was rubbing her hand across his chest again looking at him expectantly. Why was she looking at him like that? What did she want?
Oh, right, he was sitting up.
He let his arm drop, closed his eyes, and took a couple deep breaths through his nose to help try to put the room flat again. Why was she asking this of him? It was hard. The more he tried to concentrate the faster the world seemed to spin. Sometimes she could still be annoying. It didn’t matter though, he would do his best.
His arm had fallen across her lap and he concentrated on how warm she was. Really all he wanted was for her to be against him and drift off to sleep. He felt so sluggish, had to think about pulling his arm back to his side then find the energy then actually move. Sober he didn’t have think beforehand. In fact, often his body moved as a reaction before there was time to think. That was the main reason he rarely drank at all. The other was that as time had passed, and he’d been able to heal, he had found that he was more likely to experience nightmares again when he had consumed alcohol.
Tonight was an anomaly, a culmination of a crappy two weeks in a village that barely tolerated his existence let alone his presence while Sakura worked at their short staffed hospital. They had been meeting for dinner tonight after days of missing each other at their inn as they assisted the locals with recent storm and ensuing flood damage. Sakura had been running late but he had been expecting she would be and had ordered ahead for them.
That’s when he’d overheard the men a table over talking in explicit detail about how they’d love to take some time one-on-one in the exam room to show Dr. Haruno their appreciation for all her help. For the first time he was certain the men weren’t trying to goad him and either didn’t know he was there or who he was. But at that point his already sour mood had gone over a cliff. He’d been missing her and pissed so at that moment he’d decided fuck it and poured himself a cup of sake. When Sakura had finally arrived he’d been two bottles past the one he’d ordered for her.
Sakura knew him well enough to know that everything he did was for a reason. And now this annoying, wonderful, thoughtful woman would be up the rest of the night trying to work out what had triggered his highly inconsistent behavior tonight.
The not totally absurd thought that she might somehow find herself at fault made sitting up the simplist thing in the world.
He reached out for her but was met with a smooth, cool substitute. The glass of water she pressed into his hand became an obstacle. He took two big gulps to drain it, determoned to assuage any insecurities she might have, but when his stomach churned tumultuously he slowed to sip the remainder of the glass.
When he was done she took the glass from his hand and he used the opportunity to wrap his hand around the back of her neck and press their foreheads together.
When she started to protest he shook his head, rubbing their foreheads against each other.
"No, listen, please don’t worry. I was being stupid.” He said again.
He hated when she worried about him.
When he felt her nod against him he pushed forward enough to place a chaste kiss against her lips before giving in to gravity and lying back onto the mattress.
He didn’t have nightmares that night per se, all he remembered were bits and pieces of people and places he recognized along with a warm, damp presence he wrapped himself around as best he could.
There were birds chirping at the most irritating frequency in existence and somehow they happened to be right outside his window.
This was certainly punishment for something.
Sasuke groaned and rolled over as he pulled the covers up over his head. A moment later the covers were pulled back down and Sasuke groaned again.
He moved toward the warmth beside him and pressed his face to her collar bone. The smell of her took the edge off the ache and he breathed deep. A moment later there were fingers running through his hair.
His mumble of “Never again” was met with a quiet chuckle.