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raendown · 3 years

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@sarcastic-mommy commissioned this as a gift for @bouncyirwin. Merry Christmas everyone!

Pairing: ShikamaruKakashiSakura Word count: 5314 Rated: G Summary: Ever since she could remember Sakura felt drawn to the forest in a way she couldn't explain.

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The Finding

Sometimes the forest called to her, a beckoning in some language she almost knew in the back of her mind, a memory never made and long forgotten. It wasn’t something she ever mentioned to anyone. All things considered Sakura lived a perfectly normal life and she was well aware that feeling a strange pull towards the forest that grew wild behind her sleepy little neighborhood was definitely not normal. Her parents seemed happy to let her while away her early years peeking over the backyard fence with curiosity in her eyes but Sakura, normal and obedient and praised for being a good little girl, never did answer that call.

Until the year she graduated from university and moved back home to find that the forest, ever changing yet always the same, had grown in to her yard while she was gone. Oh the trees stayed on their side of the fence and the reaching vines remained where her parents liked to believe they had trained them to weave around the wooden slats. But when Sakura looked out her window one morning to see the shadow of something lupine in the dawn fog she knew, somewhere deep down, that the forest was calling again.

Prising open the wooden frame that always swelled with damp weather, Sakura called out to the figure without knowing exactly why she thought an animal might understand her or what on earth inspired her exact words.

“Not yet,” she told him.

Amazingly - and yet somehow unsurprisingly - the figure turned and disappeared as easily as that. Sakura closed the window and told herself that it was probably just one of the neighborhood dogs slipping their leash and wandering around through other peoples’ backyards. Clearly that was more likely than an emissary from the trees.

Her heart knew different. But her heart lay heavy and hidden in her breast as it had since she was young.

The next day she woke to a deer very calmly grazing between the flowers her mother had scattered across the lawn for ‘a more natural look’. Sakura narrowed her eyes and vowed not to deviate from the sidewalks when she went out job hunting. Just because she acknowledged that this was almost definitely all a fancy of her own imagination did not mean she wasn’t going to take extra precautions. There was no telling what sort of trouble she might be inviting herself in to if she ever actually answered the strange call that only she could hear. At the very least it would earn her a few questions from her parents. She didn’t want to think about anything worse.

For some time Sakura was able to ignore that strange feeling of desperate yearning in the back of her mind. She pulled the curtains across her window and studiously kept her eyes away from the trees whenever she left home. It worked in the sense that her feet never once strayed for the forest no matter how strong the call. On the other hand her plan failed in the way the yearning built up behind her ribs until her thoughts were so consumed she could think of very little else but the trees, the way shadows danced between them, the branches and how they danced whether or not there was a breeze to lift them. Whether she looked at the forest or not did nothing to change the fact that it had long since been seared in to her mind like a photograph, an image she knew every intimate detail of.

When she stepped out of the house one morning to find a deer standing placidly on her front lawn that no one else seemed able to see she knew that something had to change. It was more than obvious that ignoring the issue wasn’t making it go away. The only other thing she could think to do was to investigate. Knowing the source of this strange obsession might, by some mercy, help rid her of it entirely. That was her theory, at least.

Despite no words being spoken the deer seemed to understand her wish for it to follow her in to the backyard where fewer eyes might see her acting so abnormally. Sakura did what she could to keep the animal in her sights at all times as she walked around the side of the house but doing so proved much more difficult than she anticipated. It was almost as though it were flickering about through space and time, there and gone again in both peripherals at random, always in the same place when she turned her head to look at it directly and yet somehow existing somewhere else the moment she looked away. Of all the many impossible things she’d seen come out of the forest this was possibly the most impossible. Sakura clenched her fists and continued walking. Bravery was probably a stupid response but it certainly made her feel a little better. Keeping in mind the classes she’d taken in jiu jitsu over the last few years helped too.

Although she wasn’t entirely sure what sort of moves she thought would protect her from a deer.

Only when she was sure no one from the street could see them and she had checked the neighbors’ windows for anyone watching did Sakura finally turn to face this confounding beast head on. Except it wasn’t where she’d left it. A low gasp escaped her to see the backyard entirely empty except for herself.

Questioning her own sanity, Sakura remained utterly still for several minutes while she tried to go over every single step she’d taken that morning, looking for something - anything - she could use to convince herself there really had been a forest creature here with her. One that ostensibly only she could see. The longer she stood there the crazier she felt until on the verge of giving up she turned and there it was. It was not alone. Neither the deer nor the massive wolf now sitting at its side appeared terribly bothered by the other, both staring directly at her without acknowledging each other at all.

“What do you want?” Sakura demanded, emboldened by the pique of being made to question her own mind.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when neither of them answered. They were, after all, mere animals. As far as she could see. For all she knew they could be physical manifestations of whatever it was that made this forest so very different from any other group of boring, prosaic trees. In the handful of years she’d spent away for schooling none of the forests surrounding her dorms had ever made her stop to listen or stare deeply between the shadows like she could spot their patterns and catch them in her hands. Still, after all the worrying she’d done over the past few weeks Sakura found herself growing less afraid, more annoyed.

“Look, if you don’t want anything then go away!” Neither of the beasts so much as twitched when she began to make shooing motions with one hand. “Let me live my life in peace and go find someone else to drive insane.”

Sakura was nearly startled out of her skin when the wolf abruptly tossed back his head to let loose a long, mournful howl that raised every hair on her body. What should have been nothing more than some animalistic note danced across her senses like a voice she both knew and did not know. Yet the fact that it was an oddly human sound felt less strange to her than why she should feel she knew this wolf as deeply as she knew herself. Or why she should feel injured in some forgotten corner of her heart when both animals turned away to leave as she had asked.

“Fine! Go! That’s...what I wanted!”

Neither stopped to look back but although the fog never appeared to shift it almost seemed like the deer and the wolf faded in to it before ever reaching the fence. Between one blink and the next her yard was covered in a thick, muffling blanket of white that left her feeling, contrary to any logic, safer than she had ever been.

Unsettled with the fact that she didn’t feel even slightly unsettled by what she’d just seen, Sakura turned to go back to the front yard and continue with her day in a light stupor of confusion.

She made it all the way through a lovely if slightly distant dinner with her parents before the pull in her chest called her out in to the backyard again with a note of finality that she could not have explained with human words. The humanity in her wanted to turn back, to look at the house she had grown up in, but something stopped her. Maybe it was the hypnotic dance of branches like reaching fingers. Or maybe it was the inexplicable sense of detachment from everything around her. Whatever it was, Sakura found she had eyes only for the fog seeping through the trees to dance through the slats of the fence that never did do much to keep it at bay. As soon as the white reached her feet it was like the entire world faded. There wasn’t anything she could think to do but walk forward.

Considering where she had been standing it should have only taken a few steps to run up against the fence. Sakura felt as though she walked and walked and walked before finally it occurred to her that there was no way she could still be within the bounds of her parents’ property and yet she felt no need to look behind herself, gaze trained forward with an anticipation that was rewarded when two other pairs of eyes faded out of the haze.

“Here I am,” Sakura murmured, knowing they would hear her. “Why? Why do you keep calling me?”

Obviously she wasn’t expecting a verbal answer. Not from animals. Some kind of sign would have been nice though.

“Look, I walked all the way here - wherever the hell here is - so the least you could do is tell me why I had to do that.” Propping both hands on her hips, Sakura waited as patiently as she could. After several long moments one pair of eyes seemed to blink very slowly and then they were both stepping forward, deer and wolf standing majestically together, no long hunter and prey but with the same hungry expression in both their eyes. Sakura frowned.

After giving them both a long minute to do something, anything, she raised one eyebrow.

“I could just go home,” she pointed out, privately unsure if she would be able to find the way and uncertain besides that she even wanted to.

But it did the trick. At those words the wolf seemed to bristle and the deer lowered its head for one moment as if to bow before her. Then as one they turned and began walking away at a matching stately pace. This time they did not disappear. Sakura was bright enough to take the hint and followed after them from a safe distance, chewing sharply on her lip while she tried not to let her eyes be distracted with looking at anything else. Shapes and colors that should not have been there teased at her peripheral vision as though tempting her in to doing some unspeakable wrong. It was hard not to look. Every fiber of her being wanted so badly to know what could be so wrong about a quick and simple glance. Thankfully she was smarter than that. Obviously something was very different about this place and she wasn’t up for finding out the hard way exactly what that difference entailed.

All sense of time had long since been lost by the time they came to a large clearing but for all the natural splendor laid out before her Sakura could think only of the feeling that she had finally come back to the place she belonged. Obviously ridiculous since she had never been in the forest before for all that she’d spent her childhood peering between the trees. Something about this space just felt right in a way she could not have explained with any language known to humankind.

Rather appropriate, as luck would have, when she realized that she was not in the presence of anything human.

Two figures rose from the far side of the clearing where their forms blended in with the scenery so well she almost mistook them for part of the roots that wove together to make a throne nothing manmade could ever compare to. Both looked male, if she was right in assigning gender to ones so clearly not human, and both moved with a grace that any empress could only dream of. When they walked they did so with the confidence of those who owned everything around then and there was a gravity in those movements that spoke of a deep bond. How she knew that Sakura could not say. It wasn’t until they came to rest between the wolf and the deer that she noticed the animals had stopped moving as well and seemed entirely unbothered to be approached. On the contrary the two of them bowed their heads as if in greeting to their masters. Sakura fought back the same feeling while she observed the alluring creatures watching her in turn.

One wore silver hair like a crown that lifted and danced with the wind zephyrs, one eye as black as coal and the one a deep jewel red, his face marked with a faint line through the second eye. The second was only slightly shorter with dark hair caught up in a high tail between a pair of antlers that appeared to grow naturally from his temples. Neither of them seemed to have much concern for their lack of shirts despite the autumn chill, clad only in elaborate loincloths and jewelry. Quite a lot of jewelry. Sakura was trying to decide if she wanted to stare at the perfectly sculpted chests or the beautifully carved arm bands one was wearing when the other spoke up.

“You certainly took your time,” the one with dark hair noted. At his side the other smiled.

“Not that we can judge you for that, all things considered.”

“Hn. Still, the waiting was quite troublesome.”

Sakura blinked rapidly several times. Her mouth opened only to snap shut without saying anything. There wasn’t much she could say to that. From her earliest memories she could remember something calling her to the forest; if that call was from these two before her she could understand a little impatience.

“Why?” tumbled out from between her lips almost unbidden. “Why have you been calling me?”

The weight of their gazes felt suddenly so much heavier. Velvety horns dipped in thought but it was the one with silver hair who answered, a yearning in his eyes that pinned her in place more effectively than any shackles could have.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said we missed you?”

“No,” Sakura answered honestly with a smile. “You can’t miss someone you’ve never met.”

“Oh?” His words weren’t so much a challenge as they were amusement at her lack of understanding, not quite condescending but also not willing to explain until he’d taken his entertainment from her. It would have been annoying if she weren’t supremely aware that this was clearly their domain she had willingly stepped in to - or if he weren’t so devastatingly attractive.

Reaching out with one hand, the shorter of them stroked the proud neck of what Sakura assumed was his pet deer. The beast arched in to such freely given affection with its eyes rolling to meet hers as if to gloat over what she was so clearly missing out on. Even more strange was that she agreed. To be the one under those sturdy hands must have been quite the privilege and it made her wonder why she didn’t find that thought more repulsive, the idea of anything so inhuman being so familiar with her. Her tastes had always been a little different.

After it was satisfied that she was appropriately jealous the deer looked away from her and moved across the lush grass to lay down at the wolf’s side. Abandoned by his companion, the man twisted his lips in to a wry expression before looking up at Sakura once more.

“What is your name now?” he asked.

“Now? I’ve always had the same name.”

“In this body, yes.”

“What?” Sakura frowned, trying to work her way through that, but when she got no answer it felt like too much effort to make a big deal out of it. Answering seemed easier. “My name is Sakura.”

The moment those words had passed her lips the air around them changed, warped, pressed in close to seep under her skin like an embrace she would never be free of again. When Sakura cried out both of the figures watching her lifted their faces in triumph. The one with silver hair tossed his head back, opened his mouth, and howled with a note that struck her down to the very soul at her core. Impossibly, it was the same voice that had howled for her before, the same one that some part of her remembered although she’d never heard it before today.

“Now you have come home,” the shorter one intoned.

“Will someone please explain what is going on?” Sakura pleaded in a shaken voice.

Both men looked at her in a way she didn’t understand, silent for a very long time. As much as she knew the smart thing would be to ready herself to run, to fight, whatever was necessary, Sakura felt all the muscles in her body relaxing almost against her will when finally both of them moved a single step closer.

Definitely not the smartest reaction. If only she could bring herself to regret it.

“Names are a powerful thing,” the same one murmured. “Names have a way of binding, searing, twisting until the edges fray and catch to hold you in place - but rest assured, there’s nowhere you could ever be safer than with us.”

“Well what are your names then?”

“You may call me Shikamaru.”

“Maa, now that wasn’t very polite,” his companion cut in with a smile that showed too many teeth. “How can you ask her to remember us if we can’t even trust her with ourselves?”

After a moment of pause the first nodded and straightened his shoulders to look her in the eye. “Let me say instead: my name is Shikamaru.”

For being nearly the exact same sentence it hit much harder with just that small difference. It felt like the words spiralled down inside of her to make a home, chained to the deepest parts of her soul in a way she instantly understood meant that she had power over this creature. What sort of power that might be she had no idea. She was only a frail human herself, what harm could she really do to a being that controlled the animals of the forest - and even the forest itself to some degree if her suspicions were correct.

It wasn’t until her eyes opened again that she realized she had closed them in the first place. Shikamaru and the other still unnamed watched her every shift and twitch with rapt expressions that should have made her feel like prey about to be hunted. Instead she was warmed, a sensation of perfect belonging like she’d never felt before settling over her mind. When the second man lifted a hand to point at himself with one too-elegant hand she could only watch with a strange sort of rapturous lassitude.

“Let’s complete it then. My name is Kakashi.”

Evidently she’d been wrong. If before she had felt belonging what she felt now had no name that she could think of. It was home and settling in and fitting in to the space fate itself had carved for her and coming home to a place she had always been. Sakura rocked under the force of it.

“What-?” she whispered, unable to finish when she realized she had no idea what the question was going to be. There were too many to ask.

Kakashi reached towards her and Sakura didn’t bother to stop and think about whether or not it was a good idea, whether or not this made sense, whether or not she should. Taking his hand was the easiest thing she had done in her life. So was being gently pulled to fit between both men, closing her eyes just to feel the pulse of their matching heartbeats on either side of her body.

“You belonged to us long before you were born,” Kakashi’s voice rumbled above her head.

“Technically there wasn’t supposed to be a you at all,” Shikamaru added musingly. “Fate has some troublesome twists at times.”

“Oh I wouldn’t call her troublesome. A rather welcome addition, I’d say.”

Sakura swallowed thickly while her mind raced trying to keep up. She felt honorbound to point out, “You don’t even know me.” Then she nearly leapt out of her skin to feel the cold nose of what could only be the wolf that led her here pressing in against one thigh.

“We know you as we know ourselves. One soul shared between three bodies. Haven’t you felt it?” Kakashi mirrored his wolf, nosing against the seam where her neck met her shoulder. “You spoke of a calling, you trusted our avatars to lead you here. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“Proof of what though? I don’t know what you mean by one soul.”

This time it was Shikamaru who followed the example of his beast. As the deer stepped closer to nuzzle carefully in to her opposite thigh so did Shikamaru bury his face in her hair, angling his head so his own crown of antlers wouldn’t cause her any harm. When he spoke the bass of his voice rumbled just behind her ear in a very pleasant way.

“Do humans know nothing of us? How bothersome. The fae are always born with a part of their soul shared within another's body - soulmates, as you humans would call it. Kakashi and I found each other centuries ago and we were perfectly happy until the Last Great War when an abomination I will not give name to somehow managed to crack our soul and steal a piece of it.” Shikamaru drew a shuddering breath and it was easy to tell this was hard for him to talk about. As he faltered Kakashi seamlessly picked up the thread.

“You are that missing piece, the part of our soul that completes us. We’re very happy to have you back in case you didn’t notice.” The smile in his voice was obvious even if she couldn’t see him.

“Oh. I’m just...something you lost, then? So you called me out here to...take that bit of soul back?”

Not that Sakura would have blamed them if that was their plan. Just the thought of having something like that happen had her mind shivering away from it. She was surprised to feel both sets of arms around her tighten at the same moment the wolf at her left hip began to growl viciously.

“If anyone ever tries to hurt you-” Shikamary began.

“-we will rend the flesh from their bones and feed them to the After!” Kakashi finished with a snarl.

Blinking rapidly, Sakura took a few moments to gather any sort of coherent response. “Oh. Okay. I have to admit, this is all just a little hard to believe. Not that I’m calling you both liars or anything! Just, well, I’m not entirely positive this isn’t the most incredibly detailed dream my brain has ever come up with. Everything’s so fantastical and impossible.”

She was hardly surprised when both of them pulled away to give her matching looks of consideration, not an ounce of disappointment or judgment. Their arms fell away and she was left to conceal the sensation of loss that ripped through her like a tidal wave. Sakura cleared her throat and crossed her arms in an effort to feel like she still had some manner of control over this incredibly uncontrollable situation, not convinced this was really happening but not ready yet to dismiss it either. It seemed her indecision had been communicated well, however, as Shikamaru’s face lit up with some sort of idea.

“If proof is what you want we can do that. You are the other piece of our soul and that means you have dominion over this place as much as we do. Choose your avatar.”

“My avatar?”

“I have my deer. No matter where they are in the forest I will see through their eyes and they will bring me their secrets.”

“And I have my wolves,” Kakashi added with a fond look down at the beast still pressing as close as possible. Sakura nodded slowly and looked around.

The part of her that still couldn’t accept this was smiling indulgently as she chose the first creature her eyes landed on, whim and nothing more. “I don’t know, that slug on a rock over there. Could that be an avatar? Or should I - oh!”

It would have been impossible to describe with words the feeling of having her essence attach itself to every slug present in the entire forest - and what a forest it was. Of course she had known the treeline stretched the length of her entire hometown but it's true breadth was something she’d never had to fathom before until this moment. Now suddenly the power was hers to see through the eyes of hundreds upon hundreds of slugs all spread throughout the trees. Not a leaf or bit of loam could pass by her notice. The only thing her poor limited imagination could think to compare it to was that it was like having her own security system all throughout the entire domain.

Calling the place her own felt real then in a way she couldn’t deny any longer. Her soul pulled her towards the two glorious fae before her and her heart pulled her through the trees to reach in to the darkest and lightest corners like she’d known this place from the beginning of time. She wondered if that was how long both these men had been watching over it. She knew it was.

“I’m home,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Kakashi replied with a deep reverence.

Shikamaru’s fingers cradled her cheeks and Sakura marveled that she could identify his touch even with her eyes closed. “This time we will protect you all the more fiercely. I don’t know that we could stand to be incomplete again.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Sakura managed to choke out.

Whatever else she might have said was drowned in the rising tide of affections as first Kakashi and then Shikamaru wrapped themselves around her again and Sakura knew what it was to feel complete. Here truly was where she belonged. In all the years she’d spent growing up and choosing a school that could lead her to a good career there had never been a sense of moving forward, never a goal of any sort to give her a yearning for the future. This was why. She’d never really belonged to the human world after all.

As soon as that acceptance settled in to her soul Sakura could feel herself changing, molding in to who she was always meant to be, sinking in to the forest itself even as the forest sank in to her - but it was nearly impossible to pay attention to the changes taking place when Kakashi slipped two fingers under her chin and brought her lips up to meet with his. She was already reeling from the perfection of their kiss when Shikamaru swooped in to steal one of his own and then - oh and then. She was lost.

She could only hope to never be found again.

-A-

Easterly winds carried with them the scent of a new spring, driving Sakura’s legs faster and faster to the chorus of a dozen wolves behind her. It was her first chase of the season but there were countless seasons in her memory to guide her through the twisting pathways in to all her favorite hiding places where she would force Kakashi to sniff her out if he wanted to capture her. Chasing might be his favorite game but winning was hers. One of Shikamaru’s deer watched her fly past but the beast only rolled its eyes with the lazy energy of its master. Reaching out to her own favored avatar, Sakura changed the direction of her flight with the spin of a heel and took off towards the clearing she could see in Katsuyu’s eyes. Something about it seemed familiar and yet different in a way no other part of her forest was.

It took until she burst out of the trees for her to realize why.

Sakura came to a graceful halt and all thoughts of a chase left her mind as she took in the sight of a sagging wooden fence and a building of red brick. Ragged bushes were in the midst of attempting to flower up against the rear of the house. In the middle of the small yard there sat a rickety looking contraption that she recognized in the back of her mind as a swing set.

This was home to her once, she realized slowly. Katsuyu’s energy whispered from nearby, telling tales of the elderly couple that sometimes sat in the backyard holding hands and watched the forest with mournful faces. Her parents. Or at least the humans who created this body, that her fragmented soul might be safely housed until she could return to the place she had always belonged. It was sad, in a way, that she’d had to leave them. Were there a way she could have told them that she was safe and happy it surely would have eased their minds but time flowed differently in the fae realms than it did here on the human plane. Centuries had already passed for her, though she knew she looked no older. To appear before the ones that gave her life would only hurt them now. Not to mention explaining would break several rules that governed the interactions between her kind and theirs.

Rustling behind her made one ear twitch but she could feel her partners approaching even when she could not see them. Kakashi’s hands encircled her waist to pull her in against his chest, warm and solid.

“Having regrets?” he murmured in to her ear. Just the sound of his voice chased away any lingering traces of sadness. By the time she turned to face him the memories of her time amongst humanity were already fading again.

“Never,” she replied honestly.

“Humans are trouble,” Shikamaru called from behind a nearby tree. “Come back to where it's safe. Weren’t the two of you busy with something?”

Before her other partner could answer Sakura was twisting away and dashing off between the trees again with a laugh that sprinkled the air like fresh snow. “Catch me if you can, wolf boy!”

She didn’t need to look to know that Kakashi would be following her with eyes as bright as the avatar he had chosen. Just as she’d never needed to look to know that both he and Shikamaru would always be there at her side. They were one. One soul housed within three bodies, perfect in the way their imperfections lined up like puzzle pieces.

Did she have regrets? No. There had never been anything she believed in more than her place here in a realm beyond.

#rae writes #commission #kakasakushika #sakura #shikamaru #kakashi #fanfiction #fantasy au

23 notes · View notes

bouncyirwin · 3 years

Note

So after reading Knock Knock, Let the Devil in again (I can’t praise you enough with how good that story is ♥️) and I’m so invested in the the dynamic between Shikamaru, Sakura, and Kakashi!

And because I have a question (and I hope I’m not bothering you by asking this 😭) how do you think Kakashi and Shikamaru would react if Sakura either came back from a mission seriously injured or if they found her seriously injured from a mission?

Hiii, thank you so much for this ask, I’m always so ready to gush about these three!

When I read this ask, inspiration quite literally slammed into me and I churned this out in a sprint session. Oops.

Word Count: 2,126 words

I present to you a one-shot in the knock knock-verse.

It was too early in the day to function, yet Shikamaru was in the Hokage’s office bustling about, feeling only half-human as he guzzled on his third coffee. “Fuckin’ paperwork,” he muttered disdainfully at the sight of an ungodly pile marked with his name.

That had to violate some natural law. How this became Shikamaru’s routine was beyond him.

Once upon a time, he professed that his deepest wish was to lead a mediocre life. And here he was.

Tsunade showed up ten minutes late, visibly drunk and doing very little to conceal it. “Morning,” she tossed over her shoulder and made a beeline for the coffee machine.

“Hokage-sama,” Shikamaru said, studying the dark circles under her eyes and her ashen pallor. “You look …”

He clamped his mouth shut. Was it worth getting assigned a D-rank to let her know she looked like shit? Probably not.

“Save it kid, I know,” she waved a casual hand and slumped in her chair. “Couldn’t care less with the night I pulled.”

“Drinking again, Hokage-sama?” he inquired with polite interest.

“Ha,” she said. “I wish.”

When he raised an eyebrow, she elaborated, slumping even further in her chair. “Sakura,” she pinched the bridge of her nose. “They brought her back yesterday.”

Shikamaru’s heart sank. “Brought her back?”

“Yes, there was an ambush and she was badly injured—cracked every one of her ribs, that idiot. And the hospital was out of B-positive blood so Shizune had to sit the healing session out to donate blood. Nearly ran myself dry trying to keep her breathing…” Tsunade was scrubbing at her face but Shikamaru wasn’t listening anymore—he could barely hear her over the deafening roar of his heartbeat.

“Is she alive?” he demanded once he found his voice. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Yes, but she’s going to need plenty of rest—” the rest of her sentence remained a mystery for Shikamaru tore out of the room with a single-minded focus.

In the space between heartbeats, rationality was tossed out of the window. It left behind a desperate and half-crazed person—he needed to see her, to hear her heartbeat, to see the lively green of her eyes and he wasn’t going to rest until it happened.

He burst through the hospital doors undoubtedly looking like he’d escaped an asylum. The nurse he cornered shot him a bewildered look. “Sir, are you—” she began to say when he cut her off.

“Haruno Sakura,” he demanded breathlessly. “Her room. Where can I find her?”

“Sir,” she attempted again, sounding a little exasperated. “Haruno-san just underwent extensive surgery, she’s not allowed visitors, only family members can see her.”

Shikamaru pinned her with a no-nonsense look. “Akane-san,” he read off her name tag. “By order of the Hokage, I’m here to see Haruno Sakura.”

Akane shuffled nervously. “Do you have an official slip?”

He arched an eyebrow at her, as if to say ‘really?’.

“I-I might get in trouble,” her eyes shifted unsurely. “I need to put you down as a relative and you’re… what would I mark you down as, sir?”

It occurred to him a second later that he was being a total ass. But rationality had already fled. He was now a mess of frayed nerves.

The toddler bawling in the background wasn’t helping his case, and neither was the frantic husband demanding to see his wife at the reception, babbling about … oh.

Shikamaru turned back to the nurse, and before he realised what he was saying, he blurted. “Her husband. Mark me down as her husband.”

Akane blinked. “Oh.”

Shikamaru stared her down, daring her to argue with him. But she simply nodded and scribbled something on her chart. “Right. Of course. Follow me.”

As they stalked through clinical hallways, Shikamaru’s heart rose in a crescendo, worry and nervousness swirling in his chest in a toxic mix. What would he see upon reaching her room? Was she in pain? Was she even lucid? Gods, what if she was in a coma? What if she’d hurt herself so irreparably that it cost her career?

His mind raced with sickly thoughts until his stomach roiled and his face tinged green.

Akane stopped at room 217 and there she was.

“Oh gods,” Shikamaru whispered.

She was hooked to so many wires. Oxygen tubes and an IV and a heart monitor and tubes he didn’t even recognise. She looked frail and broken, too small amidst white sheets and beeping monitors.

He heard Akane quietly slip out of the room and was glad for it because his knees nearly buckled.

Sakura wasn’t awake. Hell, she didn’t even look alive, her face so pale where it wasn’t bruised blue and purple.

Numbly, his feet carried him to her side, his breath a short and rapid thing that barely saturated his lungs.

There was blood caked beneath her fingernails and in the cracks of her lips. His eyes stung faintly as they slid over to the heart monitor.

It was too slow.

“Oh god,” he said again, every cell in his body congested with fear.

He was afraid to even reach out and touch her, lest she broke apart under his fingertips. Delicately, ever so delicately and with trembling fingers, he ghosted a light stroke across the apple of her cheek.

“Sakura…” he said feebly, wishing her eyes would just open.

Except they didn’t. And her heart monitor droned on sluggishly in the background, crawling heartbeats that served more in adding to his anxiety than diminishing it.

It was beating. But it wasn't beating enough. What if it stopped beating?

Shikamaru wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t allowed to die. Not yet. Not ever. He didn’t care what laws governed this cursed world, this was Sakura, she was spring incarnated, and she wasn’t allowed to die.

His fingers curled around her hand, and he wished for the first time in his life that he could heal. That he could bleed strength into her the way she did to him.

It was getting difficult to breathe. What if she died?

What then?

Fuck, he hadn’t even told her he loved her.

His vision swam, rendering the room a splash of colours and pink. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t breathe.

In the muddled daze of anxieties and fears, Shikamaru wished he had the foresight to grab Kakashi.

He’d never needed an anchor more than he did in that second.

Kakashi was having an incredibly shitty day.

His coffee machine broke down, he spilled tea over his mission report and he mixed a black shirt with his coloured laundry and now half of his clothes were beyond repair.

“Dammit,” he sighed, tossing his book aside. He couldn’t even read, busy as he was dwelling on his ruined laundry.

He took one dispassionate look at his soggy report and groaned. “What a mess,” he’d actually attempted to do this one on time. Served him right for breaking his routine.

Kakashi grabbed his weapons holster and stepped out for some much needed air. Maybe he should just turn in a tea-flavoured report—perhaps if he offered Tsuande a bottle of sake she’d make an exception and accept it.

He made a beeline to her office, remembering he was due for a debrief. But what he found upon his arrival wasn’t what he expected.

Tsunade was shouting to Shizune, clearly exasperated: “—and he just upped and left! I’m his Hokage, and he upped and left!”

“Maah…” Kakashi began unsurely.

Tsunade’s gaze cut to him. “Hatake, there you are,” she huffed. “I’m too fucking hungover for this. We’re one man down, I need someone to look over these reports.”

Kakashi frowned, finally noticing how empty her office looked. “Where’s Shikamaru…?”

“The idiot left,” Tsunade growled, raising goosebumps on his arms. “I told him I spent all night healing her, what did he think, that I’d leave her to die? Fucking hell.”

“Leave who to die?” Kakashi said, confused. “What happened?”

“Sakura happened,” Tsunade ranted tiredly. “They brought her back almost half dead, I’ve been patching her up for the better part of eight hours and this is how I’m rewarded.”

But Kakashi had stopped listening after ‘half dead’. Half dead? “Half … dead?” he echoed, his mouth dry.

No. This wasn’t happening.

This wasn’t happening.

“Yes,” Tsunade sighed. “But I operated on her and she’s going to be fine.”

Kakashi barely heard the words. His brain was a string of very adamant denial. No, no, no, no.

He didn’t want it to be true—all those years he had been certain, was so sure that it was him, that he was the reason the people he loved always died. That he was a curse to those he cared about.

Every person he loved came back in a body bag.

Fuck.

Kakashi turned tail, a sudden manic urge to see her rising unbearably in his chest. What if Tsunade was lying, what if Sakura wasn’t fine? What if she was fine, but she died anyway?

Fear pumped through his veins, rendering him dizzy. This was his worst nightmare come to life—how could he have forgotten that people, even those that could mend bones and heal what was broken, were so damn breakable?

His legs couldn’t carry him quickly enough.

He didn’t waste time interrogating the nurses for her whereabouts, he knew her scent like she was a part of him. It led him to her now, her unique sweetness tainted with blood and antiseptic.

Gods, he was going to be sick.

He nearly ripped the door off its hinges in his haste to get to her.

Shikamaru was already there, looking wrecked, looking worse than Kakashi had ever seen him. “Is she—”

He couldn’t even say it.

“They … they said they don’t know when she’ll wake up,” Shikamaru whispered hollowly.

Kakashi felt the ground crumbling beneath his feet. “No,” he whispered, leaning back against the wall when he teetered off balance.

His hip jarred against the doorknob but Kakashi barely registered the sting. Barely anything registered beyond the fear-terror-fear coursing through his veins like poison. “Please, no,” he said.

This couldn’t be happening again.

His father and Obito and Rin and Minato-sensei—hadn’t they been enough? Was Sakura going to be another name on the too long list of losses that haunted him?

He really was going to be sick. He clenched his jaw against the reflex, forcing his brain out of the dizzying tornado of anxieties. His gaze focused on Shikamaru, the only other person that mattered as much.

He didn’t look good at all, pale and shaking and appearing ready to fall apart.

The sight of him was strangely grounding.

Kakashi found his elusive strength, located his knees under him and was at his side in the next second.

“Shikamaru,” he rasped, clutching the other man’s arm.

“She looks dead,” Shikamaru whispered. “I … I …”

Words eluded him.

Kakashi tugged at his arm, drawing Shikamaru against him. He went without a fight, slumping against Kakashi’s chest like a puppet whose strings were cut.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kakashi lied, surprised by how much conviction he could bleed into it when it was for someone else’s benefit. “She’s going to be fine.”

Shikamaru shook in his hold, his shoulders minutely trembling. But just as suddenly, his body calmed down and he gripped tightly onto Kakashi’s middle. “What if she isn’t?”

“She will be,” Kakashi stressed because … anything else was not an option. “It’s Sakura. She punched a goddess in the face.”

Shikamaru let out a short, pained laugh against him. “Gods, don’t remind me; what a reckless idiot.”

“It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Kakashi confessed in a soft murmur against Shikamaru’s hair. He tightened his hold on him, drawing strength from the warmth of his body. “As beautiful as the two of you together.”

Lean fingers dug in his back. “I’m glad you’re here,” Shikamaru said sincerely. “I’m glad you came. Fuck, I think I’m gonna cry.”

“You can cry,” Kakashi soothed, sinking his fingers in lush, dark hair. “Hell, I might cry.”

Shikamaru let out a wet chuckle. “Yeah.”

Kakashi’s face bowed, nuzzling the side of his head as he took a shuddering breath. He clutched Shikamaru closely, his breath shallow and his heart a warbling mess in his chest.

He couldn’t think about if she died. He would die, then, if not from sorrow then from a broken psyche. It was easier to focus on the beeping machines and Shikamaru’s sure, thudding heart. Kakashi tuned in on every shuddering breath, his palm mapping his expanding ribs.

His focus narrowed down to his senses, to Shikamaru, to Sakura’s fighting, beating heart and prayed like he never had before.

She was going to be alright.

She had to be.

#bouncyirwin writes #kakasakushika #kakasaku #shikasaku #kakashika #naruto #angst #hurt/comfort #knock knock let the devil in #sakura haruno #kakashi hatake #Shikamaru nara

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