Dissolving

@_@ I have been spending most of my time reading fanfiction or playing with other fanfic authors but I havent spent much time actually writing it. Thought it was about time.
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There are people in our lives that we can never seem to get rid of, some might call this a mark of misfortune but others count themselves blessed to have such a familiar presence. These people are the ones who torture us, they circle you as if they cannot avoid the gravitational pull of one fate to another and they bring you truths you do not always wish to face. The dance between you can, from one moment be happy and light and in the next turn into the battle for your next breath as their aura alone feels like it will crush out your very existence.

It hadn’t taken long for him to show up after the funeral, she stared at him as he stood at the gate waiting patiently for her to let him in. He knew her schedule.
She walked past him and opened the door, he greeted her quietly and moved with the grace of a panther into the living room sitting in the main chair and looking for all the world like he belonged there. She gathered the things for tea and set the cup on the table beside him.

Sakura stared at him at the clock on the mantel slowly ticked off the seconds, she had never really had much to say to this man, even to this day there was a large part of him that frightened her despite what people told her. She understood why he had done it but just knowing that he had still set her teeth on edge no matter what his reasons were.

She watched as he reached out towards the cup of tea on the table, the long fingers unerringly found the mug and lifting it brought it to his lips. She watched his throat as he swallowed and her eyes followed as the cup was slowly lowered with gentle precision and placed gently back onto the table top. It wasn’t the most extraordinary feat but just watching him you could never tell he was blind.

Itachi had done his duty to the village and lost his eyes and most of his power in the effort, he had done it all for the only family he would acknowledge. Sasuke. He had never really been a part of their lives despite that fact, Itachi preferred to go his own way and do his missions solo, some joked that he didn’t want people to watch him fumble around blindly but sakura knew that was not the truth, A man like Itachi never fumbles. He would always do the right thing with the precision of a surgeon, cutting out what infected and did not belong.

“How Is it that he could not swim?” Sakura had expected this lecture at some point, it only made sense that it would eventually come from him. He always held her responsible for everything. She stared out the window and felt her knuckles go white against the cup she herself had warmed her hands around, what was worse is that she knew he could tell every nuance of her body even from where he was.

Itachi had been like a silent cloud over their marriage from the very beginning, he had never approved of Sakura and Sakura could never think of a way to talk to him to prove to him that she was not shallow and vapid. To prove that she was not as horrible as she herself knew that she was.

“Sasuke kept telling me that he was going to do it but then….things got busy,” she replied finally.

“Fairly easy excuse isn’t it?” His dry monotone scrapped against her ears with the same recriminations she herself had been throwing around in her own mind.

“Would you like something to eat?” She attempted to steer the conversation away hoping that he would take the hint. Thankfully for her he did and she walked into the kitchen her toes once more curling against the familiar hard wood.

“So what are you going to do?” the sentence floated to her from where he sat in the family room, gracefully arranged in the chair where he stared blankly out into the world.

Sakura had no way to answer this loaded question and bought herself time by pressing the rice balls together and hoping he would think she could not hear him from where he sat.

“Now that the youngest is gone and Teichi is on a team do you really think that you should stay?” Sakura stopped and gripped the rice ball firmly in her hand feeling the soft grains as they sprouted between her fingertips breaking off and splattering against the floor.

She slowly wiped her fingers clean of the white sticky mess, running her fingers under the water she thought of dirt and jerkily turned the water back off.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” she flew in a rage around the corner only to find him already there, she slammed into his chest and attempted to back up but his long fingers snapped around her elbows and he held her there against him. Sakura felt her face pushed against the fabric over his chest, she felt the cool black fabric and underneath the ribbed grain of his netted armor, and below even that was the steady thrum of his heart. He towered over her and stared down at her head, Sakura could only think of the steady beating of that heart and the cool brush of his hair as it fell across her forehead.

“What I mean is, do you really think that you should stay?” he repeated the words and they took on a whole new meaning. She was at once repulsed by the fierce aura of this man and drawn to it. The long stroke of his fingers over her elbows drew attention to an appendage she had really never paid much attention too, she felt as if she was about to snap and her breathing came in a ragged whoosh as she drew in her strength.

“Let me go,” the infuriated statement came out as nothing more then a whisper, her arms hung limply at his side as he did nothing more then trap her against his body, his breath dusted the top of her forehead, his cool hair against her brow….the steady thump of the heart against her cheek. She lost all since of time and place as they stood there in a stalemate. Sakura closed her eyes to block out the sight of her kitchen, she felt the arms wrap around her and she numbly accepted the embrace, it wasn’t even that it felt good to be held after so long. There was the part of this man that had always terrified her and always would terrify her. And she knew in that instance that Itachi had decided yet again to become the enemy, he would rid Sasuke of whatever evil plagued him and accept all of the consequences and the hate for doing so.

Sakura failed in that moment to care, maybe she was the weight that dragged them down this her. Maybe she had done nothing and deserved nothing. She lifted her face and stared blindly as him dry lips met her own. Her fingers came up and gripped the back of his neck and she drew him closer to her body as the heat began to rise.

This was no true passion, this was years of self recrimination, the anger and hatred that had been locked inside all of this time. It all became a catalyst as she clung hungrily to the first one to truly know how terrible she really was. This man knew her for what she was, he knew that she was the cancer that needed to be cut away.

She drifted as she felt the hands that loosened her clothes with no memories how they had reached the bedroom, she stared unseeing as her shirt was lifted over her head and she clung to the hard shoulders as they met yet again in a fierce embrace. The skin of his back was cool almost as if it were marble or his heart could only afford to pump blood to the most vital parts. This man was eternally frost bitten. She raked her nails down his back and surprised to have drawn blood.

The lips against her throat turned fierce producing teeth that gripped the tender skin and threatened to tear. He was no longer gentle with her as he commanded her response and sought her compliance making quick work of the final barriers between them. She met him in response thrust for thrust and kiss for kiss.

Sakura could only wonder where she would go now.

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Sasuke hung his head and walked away, the sounds of passion rang in his ears, the sight of Itachi’s lips…Sakuras hair across the bed spread. It all flashed before his eyes with no rhyme or reason. All sense of time left him and his feet wandered away from the pain.
He found himself staring at the door that had welcomed him these many years, he lifted his hand and rested it there and could find no strength to knock. To all outward appearances he looked cool and unaffected, everything was on the inside where it should be.

The door opened without any warning, and the welcome was waiting for him ready to forgive. Sasuke moved in and refused to think about anything else.

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Itachi had known the moment his brother had walked away, he tucked the woman who silently cried into his shoulder and rested his head on top of hers. People say that doing the things you had to do was not easy but Itachi knew better, you did them because they were to be done and nothing should get in the way of that.

But was that really true? Should there not have been even a qualm of doubt? A moment where he said “maybe this is not the best way”.
He might be fine with fooling others but Itachi did not allow himself such a luxury, the truth behind it was that this had been all too easy, the flesh all to enticing, the gains were far to much his and to no one else. He asked himself what his true motives were and came back with confusion. His fingers drifted down her spine and he was entranced by the stark relief of her ribs and vertebrae, looking at her everyday you would not know how fragile she was, how easily she could be broken, how thin and pale she was underneath it all. Yet she still welcomed his touch, she did not flinch away but took it all face on.

He thought about his younger brother and could only believe in his strength, he could not be allowed to go on as things had been. It did no one any good to live a lie, to shield yourself from the truth. Itachi had seen it affect Sasuke in more ways then one, he had given Sasuke every opportunity to make things right but Sasuke had seemed to lack the ability, so Itachi would do what Sasuke could not.

He would be gone in the morning and leave the mess behind, but for now he would hold her. Just for now.