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fiercyy · 6 years

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For @mycherryqueen who requested: Genin Sasusaku

a/n: I would have responded directly but it wouldn’t let me fix my formatting if I did :) This is a genin AU, but I hope you like it anyway!

ao3 ffnet

if you can’t hold on, hold on

Post-Chunin exams attack AU. Sakura always wished she could relate to her teammates better, now she wishes she could take it back. Sasuke acquires some unwanted roommates and a team becomes a family.

She wakes up only to feel like she's still dreaming. It's like one of those nightmares where she can't move or scream, but desperately wants to.

Eventually she manages a gasp. It burns her lungs.

She feels crushed.

Her wide eyes stare at the ceiling. It's so white, it hurts. Her eyes dart around frantically until she regains use of her limbs.

She sits up a little, only to find movement unimaginably painful. Back against the pillows, she manages to turn her neck sideways to inspect a startling, sudden inhale.

She is unsurprised to find Naruto sniffling at her bedside. Big, wet eyes squint at her even as he wipes globs of snot from his nose. He snorts it up, practically hysterical. She's touched. She doesn't think she's seen him break down like that over anyone, not even Sasuke.

"It's okay," she tells him… or tries to. It comes out a rasp. Her throat feels so dry.

"Here." Gingerly, she turns to her other side. Sasuke is on his feet beside her, holding out a paper cup. "Help her sit up," he orders.

She shouldn't be shocked to see Naruto obey him, but she is. With more tenderness than she ever would have thought possible of someone so… exuberant, he slips an arm behind her shoulders and boosts her up.

Sasuke braces one hand on the back of her head and holds the cup to her lips. She blushes at his touch. She wants to take it from him, she feels to infantile, but at the same time it feels so nice to be cared for. This has never happened. She feels that the axis of their dynamic has shifted, but can't quite remember why.

"How long have I been out? What happened?" she croaks and blushes deeper, embarrassed to have Sasuke hear her discomposure.

"A week," Sasuks tells her tightly. It touches her to know he was worried.

"Have you guys been here the whole time?"

"Of course!" Naruto launches into a long explanation about the rest of the battle. He tells her all about Gaara, avoiding going into detail about how he'd beaten him. Awkwardly, he breaks the news about Sandaime-sama, but he finishes on a good note. There will be no war, Sand surrendered, Sound fled.

Sakura cries a few tears for the kind old man she grew up to serve.

"But it's all over now," she assures herself and them, "Everything will be okay now."

A few hours later a nurse comes in, interrupting the awkward silence that had settled over the team. They don't have much to talk about with all of them lost in their own thoughts. The nurse checks Sakura's chart and tells her how pleased she is to see her awake.

"I'm so sorry about this Haruno-san," and it's so strange to hear someone call her that, "But we're going to discharge you." The nurse bites her lip guiltily. "Do you have someone at home who can watch out for you?"

"Oh, yeah. My parents," Sakura shrugs sheepishly. She looks at her boys and feels guilty for this fact. It's always uncomfortable when families come up. She tries not to mention it.

She's also trying hard not to think about it. They're not here, but they definitely threw a fit when they heard she was hurt. They were overprotective like that. She'd be lucky if she could get out from under their smothering for weeks yet. She almost wanted to apologize to Sasuke for the scene her dad probably made.

"Excellent, I'll bring back some papers for you to sign and then you're free to go." She points an accusatory finger at the boys in turn, "Walk her home. Don't stress her out."

When she leaves, Sakura volleys a stare back and forth between her teammates. "What was that about?"

Naruto pokes his pointer fingers together and avoids eye contact. "We miiiiight have gone a little overboard bugging the staff about you. Bastard over there kept yelling at people who wouldn't tell us what's going on because we're not 'family'." Airquotes accompany the word. "We're teammates! That's almost closer than family…!"

His voice slowly fades in the background and Sakura gazes at Sasuke. All she can thing is 'He was worried about me!'

He starts to look uncomfortable and her grin gets even more huge.

Sakura walks home under her own power, but she can feel both her teammates hovering at her heels. A block from home she stumbles and finds a hand on each elbow. They've never treated her so delicately. It's starting to grate at her.

"Naruto, stop," she wrenches her elbow away from him but carefully doesn't jostle Sasuke's. She wouldn't want to insult him, even if it is equally annoying. "Really, I'm fine…"

"We know!"

"Hn."

When they arrive at her doorstep, all Sakura wants to do is hug her mom and dad and sleep. She doesn't invite them in, even though it's the polite thing. They've spent a week at her bedside and she should be grateful to know they care, but all she can think about is how once again, the two of them are fine. And she was the dead weight bringing them down. What did she do against Gaara? Nothing. It's pathetic.

"Bye, thank you."

"No problem Sakura-chan! Anytime. Ramen tomorrow?"

"…Maybe…"

"Give it a rest moron, she needs to recover."

"I know," he replies, spitefully.

Sakura sighs, a fond smile playing across her lips.

"Really, both of you…thanks."

After she's closed the door, her teammates remain for a moment.

"Did she seem off to you?" Naruto asked, staring at the house. All the lights are on, a cheery glow from every window.

"Hn." Though, he agrees.

"Maybe they shouldn't have let her out of the hospital yet, she-"

A sudden, blood curling scream echoes through the neighborhood.

"SAKURA!" Sasuke and Naruto shout back, scrambling for the front door.

What is it? An enemy ninja, hiding out in her house? A thousand scenarios flip through his head, each worse than the last.

He gets to the door first, but Naruto barrels right into it with his shoulder, breaking it down.

"Sakura! Sakura!" They shout frantically over each other, darting around.

As they pause to breath between shouts, they can hear heart rending hiccups and gasps coming from the room to the left. They follow the sound into what turns out to be the Harunos living room.

There, they find Sakura.

Two bodies have been thrown to the floor, like ragdolls. Sakura is wild, kneeling over her father's body, pumping his chest, over and over.

Kizashi is cold and gray, eyes staring, wide and unseeing, straight ahead. "Come on, come on."

Naruto kneels on Kizashi's other side and touches the carpet. His fingers come away rusty with crusted blood. Dried blood. They have lain here a while.

Sakura doesn't glance up to acknowledge their presence. She shows no signs of noticing them and never stops the chest compressions. She sniffs loudly, "It's okay, it's okay. It's a good thing we did that first aid training before the chunin exams so we could fix-" A hollow laugh, "It's going to be okay."

Her arms are strong, her compressions well-spaced and rhythmic. It's the perfect execution of the technique they were taught.

Sasuke stands stock still, staring at the other body. Sakura's mother lies in a similar patch of dried blood. He assumes it's her. Her head is missing.

He feels sick. This is too familiar. This is… how could this happen again? This was never supposed to happen to anyone else. How is Sakura supposed to deal with this? Sakura cries over stray cats and broken bones and stupid movies and him and Naruto. She's not equipped to handle something like this. It isn't fair. It isn't. What the hell happened here?

And for the first time, Naruto looks to him for answers, as if he were the preeminent expert on trauma. Which… he supposes he sort of is. "What do we do?"

Sasuke freezes. He honestly doesn't know. He's thrown back in time to being 8-years-old and running. Running until his legs gave out. Terror, crushing sadness and then numbness for a very long time.

Sakura seems to be labouring under the delusion that she can make a different, and isn't that just like her. He frowns and tries to gather himself. His mouth tastes like bile and his head is spinning.

Naruto is still staring at him helplessly while Sakura tries to snatch her father back from death. It's long too late, but still she tries. She won't stop until they make her.

"Sakura," he says sharply. She automatically looks up, meeting his gaze. Her rhythm falters. She panics and forces her attention back to his chest, pumping with more fervor than before. "Sakura," she shakes her head and tears stream down her face. They land in splashes on her pale hands. There is blood between her fingers, sticky and brown.

Sasuke finds it within himself to kneel at her side. His hands grasp her wrists gently. "Sakura, you have to stop."

She ignores him, trying to shrug him off without stopping her task. "No, no I can't. I can't. I can't stop. I have to keep going! I-" a broken sob chokes off her words.

More gently than he's ever treated her, he moves his hands to her shoulders. The inexorable pull of his hands seems to trigger something in her. She closes her eyes to her father's corpse and throws herself into Sasuke's arms. She presses her face into his chest and cries. For a moment he freezes, completely out of his death, unsure how to react.

He and Naruto make eye contact. The other boy widens his eyes and exaggeratedly crosses his arms, hugging himself.

Sasuke's brows knit together in confusion and Naruto rolls his eyes. He does it again and points to Sakura.

"I understand!" Sasuke mouths angrily, "I just-!"

Looking at her, broken, he realizes he doesn't have a choice here.

His arms wind around her and hold her close. He rubs slow circles into her back, the way Itachi used to do for him. He doesn't even think about it, he just associates the sensation with comfort.

Naruto falls to his knees at Sakura's back and throws his arms around them both. Sasuke wants to complain. Naruto's arms are like hot pipes, he holds them all together. Against all odds, Sakura's tremors slowly calm. They remain like that for a while, an intertwined security blanket.

Eventually, Naruto stands. "What do we do?" he reiterates, "We can't let her stay here."

Sasuke grimaces, "I…We'll take her to my place."

"Why not my place?" Naruto demands.

"Your place smells like spoiled milk and body odour."

"Hey!"

"I have a spare bedroom."

This seems to appease his teammate.

"Hey, Sakura?" Naruto pokes her shoulder. "We're gonna get you some food okay?" at Sasuke's cutting look, "What? Food makes everything better." Nothing could make this better.

Sasuke helps her stand and supports most of her weight. Slowly, they make their way out of the room. Naruto, standing in front, starts turn around to look around the room, as if he were missing something.

"Don't-!"

Too late. Naruto had instinctually scoured the room… and found Mebuki's head, which had rolled into the corner, under a side table. Her eyes are closed, her lids blue.

Naruto turns green, covers his mouth and bolts from the room. The sound of him retching echoes around the lonely emptiness of the Haruno household.

Sakura's arm, slung around Sasuke's shoulder, trembles. "Let's leave. Please." And it's the quiet, despondent please that gets to him. He can feel it happening; Sakura, slipping away like smoke climbing skyward. Like maybe she's burning, waiting for the chance to float away.

They amble across town to his apartment. It's in a good neighborhood; safe and clean, a block away from the hospital. It's only on the second floor, so even while practically carrying Sakura, it's no trouble getting to it. It once belonged to two of his cousins. While all the Uchihas lived in the family district on the outskirts of the village, some retained additional residences. Keiko and Akira were both medics and sometimes it was easier to spend the night nearby than make the journey all the way across town. It's yet another extravagance left to a sole heir, and one of the few he makes uses of.

He couldn't bear to go back, after it happened. He doesn't suppose Sakura will want to either.

He places her on the couch and Naruto hovers nearby.

"I think," he clears his throat, it's suddenly dry. "Maybe we should go get Kakashi."

Naruto jumps at the chance to be useful. "I'll go. Stay with her?"

Sasuke makes the effort to roll his eyes, to pretend everything is normal for a moment and he's just annoyed at Naruto telling him to do something he was planning to do anyway.

When he gone, Sasuke glances at Sakura and finds he's lost. What now? She's not crying anymore; she's just sitting there. Should he comfort her? He awkwardly lays a hand on her shoulder and she startles. The way she looks at him then, like she can't recognize him or her surroundings sends him into a familiar panic.

You are not eight years old anymore. You are not eight years old anymore. You are not eight years old anymore.

The air suddenly feels too thick, like the room is filling with smoke.

He closes the front door, with him on the other side, then slides to the ground.

Head in his hands, he can no longer keep himself from reliving That Day. He takes deep, shallow breaths and touches the cold tile of his hallway floor, to ground himself.

This isn't like that. This isn't like that at all.

It feels like hours, but also only minutes before he feels a hand ruffling his hair. He opens his eyes. Kakashi crouches in front of him, giving him as comforting a look as he can with just one eye.

"Yo."

"I don't think I've ever seen you cry before," Naruto says, not scornful, but awed. As if he had no idea Sasuke could.

He knuckles the tears away and clears his throat.

He had his moment and now it's over.

There is work to be done now.

"She's inside. What do we do?"

Kakashi seems to smile.

He leads the boys inside. They stay behind him, like they're hiding.

Kakashi approaches Sakura, who hasn't moved, even to slouch. "Sakura," he intones gently, but doesn't touch her. She looks at him like she looked at Sasuke, but it doesn't trigger the same surging wave of trauma. He offers her a smile. "May I get you cleaned up?" She has blood caked on her knees like mud. Her hands are rusty with it.

She presses her lips tighter together, but doesn't say no.

Slowly, so as not to startle her, Kakashi picks her up.

"Do you think one of you could go get Sakura a change of clothes? And I need another one of you to file a report," at this he raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

Someone needs to take care of the bodies. Over the past week, people have been pulled from the rubble, died from their injuries, they need to be identified. Protocol must be followed. The circumstances under which they were found must be recorded.

"I'll do the report," Naruto offers quickly, surprising everyone. Never in his life has he ever offered to do a single page of paperwork.

"You write like all your fingers are broken, I'll-"

"Sasuke, let me-!" he stops and looks away. "I don't think I can go back there…"

And he doesn't really blame him.

He doesn't want to go either.

But Sasuke considers himself the team leader and if he's learned anything from Kakashi-sensei, it's that leaders pick up the slack and take the most difficult tasks for themselves. You know, when they feel like it.

So Sasuke agrees and returns to the Harunos'.

Before today Sasuke had never been inside Sakura's house. He had walked her home- no, he hadn't. He had walked beside her when her home was on the way to his from wherever they were going.

He goes straight for the stairs and studiously keeps his gaze straight ahead, not letting it stray in the direction of the living room.

Going through her drawers, he feels like an invader. How much does she need?

She has shockingly little in the way of clothes. Her whole room is sparse, actually.

For the first time, he takes a moment to notice his surroundings. The house is small. Two cramped bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor, a kitchen and living room on the bottom. It's sandwiched between two identical buildings.

All her furniture is very old, but well taken care of.

There's a cardboard box with a few weapons, polish, a whetstone and wire, haphazardly thrown together. He rolls his eyes, she should really take better care of-

Then he remembers it isn't the time.

He empties her dresser into a duffle he brought from home, she has a spare pair of shoes under her bed, he takes those too. In the bathroom he finds an overabundance of products. Why are there twelve moisturizers? He takes one; the biggest bottle since that seems the most practical, and her toothbrush.

Back in her room, he glances around for anything he missed. There's a knit blanket on her bed that looks ratty and hand made. He thinks about the stuffed cat he still has, stowed safely in his closet. The comfort of home might be helpful for her. He stuffs it in the bag.

Back at Sasuke's Sakura sits on the edge of the bath, dead-eyed and dead tired.

Kakashi patiently scrubs her knees and hands with a towel soaked in warm water. "Sakura," he murmurs. She glances at him and he gestures at her neck. "You've got some-"

Her hand flies to her neck and comes away brown. Her eyes widen and breathing stops.

Kakashi shushes her. "Don't worry, I've got it." And with surprising gentleness, he cleans this too.

They hear the front door open and close, both look up at the sound. "That'll be Sasuke with some clothes for you. Why don't you shower? I'll go check on our boys." He winks conspiratorially at her, "Can't leave them alone too long."

She doesn't smile or give any indication she heard him, but he didn't expect her to.

Kakashi meets Naruto in the living room with the intention of regrouping. He's bent over his half-written report, so intent he doesn't even notice his sensei come in.

Soon, Sasuke enters from the direction of the second bedroom.

"You did the right thing bringing her here and coming to get me," Kakashi assures them. "I'm sure this was hard for you both… Especially you Sasuke," the boy shrugs a shoulder in uncomfortable deference. "This is a lot to deal with, but it's not going to be a priority for the village. It may be a while before Sakura can expect help from that quarter."

"What kind of help?" Naruto asks.

"He means she might have to be here a while… It might take some time before someone can collect the bodies." It had taken a week back then. A month to have the compound cleaned.

"That's fine, isn't it?" blue eyes shift between his male teammates.

"Hn," they take this as assent.

"Guys… I've been writing the report and… what do you think happened to them?"

"Probably a Sound or Sand nin who was hiding out, or went rogue. I'd have to take a look."

"So it was just random," and Naruto can't grasp that, how the world could be so haphazardly cruel.

"Has she been in there a while?" Naruto remarks after a long stretch of just the shower filling the silence.

There is a pile of clothes, untouched at the threshold of the bathroom. Sweatpants, a sweater, underthings. Sasuke probably put it there. For a moment he lets himself be touched by his students actions.

Kakashi's mouth forms a grim line beneath his mask and knocks on the door. "Sakura?" he calls as the boys crowd behind him. No answer. "Sakura, I'm coming in."

The door is unlocked. He picks up the pile of clothes and sets it on the counter as he approaches the shower, on the far wall. He doesn't bother to close the door behind him. Sasuke and Naruto crowd the frame, looking concerned.

Kakashi calls Sakura's name again, but they can see her outline through the translucent blue vinyl. She's curled up on the floor of the bath. Kakashi peers behind the curtain, but doesn't pull it back.

In the fetal position, head pressed against her arms is a very lost little girl. Her pink hair snakes over her shoulders and in her face. The water has begun to run cold, goose bumps pimple her skin all over.

Kakashi turns off the water and throws a towel over her. "Ok, that's enough." Ever gentle, he helps her to her feet, ensuring the towel protects her modesty. He helps her out of the bath and shoots the frozen boys a look. They scramble to avert their eyes.

Sasuke shoves Naruto out into the hall and dashes after him. Kakashi chuckles.

He helps Sakura dress and leads her by the shoulders, into the living room. When she sits on the couch of her own volition, Sasuke drapes a wool blanket over her head and shoulders. She holds it to her face and inhales. Her tears are quiet now and there is life in her expression.

next.

(x)

#sasusaku #team 7 #sakura haruno #sasuke uchiha #Naruto Uzumaki #fanfiction #my fic #post-chuunin exam au #genin au #post chunin exam au #post chunnin exam au #chunin exam au #if you can't hold on #hold on

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