Dead Flowers

Title: Dead Flowers
Author: Ninjacat
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Non-con (sort of) involving two minors.
Disclaimer: Heh. Naruto isn't mine, I promise.
A/N: This is NOT a Happy Story. I do not WRITE Happy. This is quite wrong, in fact, and a little disturbing. Enjoy.

(I actually like Sakura a lot, I just like writing a darker side of her. Whee.)


The flower from Tuesday had died.

Sakura removed it silently and watched as Wednesday’s flower wilted sadly to the right as she slid Thursday’s flower into the vase beside it. Absently she felt her fingers brush the pale petals and arrange the flowers, just like she did every day even though Sasuke was never awake to see the effort.

She refused, simply refused to think that he may never wake to see her small token and the care she put into it.

However, she could not silence the bitter little voice in her head that said Sasuke wouldn’t appreciate the effort anyway, whether he woke up again or not. A few flowers at his side were nothing in his eyes, he might not even glance their way at all, let alone understand the dedication she put into the simplest of gestures.

Sakura didn’t want to think about it anymore, but it was too late and as she sat down in her chair beside his bed, all she could do was stare at his pale, sleeping face and wonder what about her wasn’t good enough. What Uchiha Sasuke could possibly need that she could never give him.

She didn’t understand him. She wanted to.

She wanted him to see her.

She wanted, although she knew it was foolish, him to love her.

I love you, she thought, pained, and her fingertips burned to touch him. She always wanted to, they were alone and he was asleep, she just wanted to hold his hand or stroke his hair, but fear bit at her and she never had.

For some reason, she didn’t have that fear anymore. The need to touch him flared brighter than ever and she gave into it.

Sakura cast an idle glance at the door, even though she didn’t know why, it wasn’t like she was going to hurt him. Her eyes returned to him and her hand darted out too quickly to stop it, and in less than a blink of an eye, her hand was closed gently over his and she couldn’t even breathe.

Sasuke didn’t flinch, didn’t wake up.

She didn’t know why that was a relief.

His hands were too soft for a boy’s, especially a ninja. It struck her as odd, and gingerly she ran her fingertips along his knuckles and the finer bones in his hand and wrist. All soft except for the very tips of his fingers, which were hardened with calluses from the handling of kunai. That, she understood. But the rest of his skin...

She realized, very quickly and sharply, that his skin was only so soft because his hands were made up entirely of healed burns and she swallowed hard. Remembered then, in all of her horror, that the one of the very few things she knew about the Uchiha can was that they were renown for one more thing other than the Sharingan: the perfect control of fire techniques.

Before her was the result of that perfect control, and it stilled her immediately.

She thought, almost desperately, as her hand slid up his arm, Who knows this about you? No one. Just me. I could understand you if you’d let me...

Sakura’s fingertips ran across the fabric of his sleeve; her skin jumped at the contact. Her gaze darted to his sleeping eyes and half-parted lips and she wondered – almost frantically – what it would be like to kiss him. Even then; even still and silent and just so...beautiful.

Sasuke-kun is beautiful, she thought, inching to the very edge of her seat until her chest was pressed against his mattress and her lips were just so close to his and she couldn’t stand it. She wanted her first kiss to be Sasuke’s...had always wanted it to be Sasuke’s. Maybe he didn’t have a first kiss to give anymore, and maybe now he wouldn’t...

He wouldn’t stop her. He couldn’t.

She wasn’t even sure what she was doing, it happened too quickly and startlingly, it was over almost more quickly than it had begun...but it happened. She was off her chair, hovering inches away from Sasuke’s prone body and her lips were brushing his and he was warm and her heart swelled with love – desire, something like lust? – for him.

Uchiha Sasuke was unconscious...the kiss meant nothing. It felt hollow and the corners of her eyes stung with tears, yet somewhere inside her, all she could think was, There won’t ever be more than this. This is all of Sasuke I’ll ever, ever get.

Empty or not...it was all she had.

She wanted more.

Her fingers were shaking, her breath ghosted over Sasuke’s lips in shivering hisses, she wanted to touch as much of him as she could reach, the pale softness of his skin and every freckle she knew she’d never see again. Her hands shook harder before she took a deep breath, cast a lingering glance on the door and sighed very, very deeply.

Slowly, she slid one hand between his neck and his pillow, tangling her fingers in his blue-black hair and angling his lips up, just an inch, toward hers. She kissed him again, more slowly but just as softly, as her other hand slipped bravely into the sheet covering his chest.

Sakura kissed his chin, the line of his jaw and the soft skin of his neck, quick and fluttering kisses like short brushstrokes of an uncertain artist. Her hand pressed forward as she did so, seeking the heat of his skin underneath his hospital shirt. She could have moaned aloud as her fingers brushed across the muscles of his stomach; at the heat he radiated, even as he lie still and unresponsive to her fingers.

Not enough, not enough, she thought wildly, pressing her cheek to his and her forehead onto his pillow. Sasuke-kun.

And in the next second, she wasn’t sure what had come over her because she wanted...she wanted to touch him. She wanted to, she had wanted to kiss him and his lips were sweet under hers, and she’d been curious about... Well. Everything else. She wanted to touch him there, boys liked that, didn’t they? She’d heard...

Not that it would matter. Sasuke wasn’t awake to like it or hate it or anything at all, and even then...she wanted to.

Her nails scraped gently along his stomach as she tentatively stretched her hand toward the waistband of his hospital shorts. She prodded the elastic, hesitant and terrified but still wanting.

She took a deep, shuddering breath as she pushed her hand past the waistband of his shorts and boxers and yes, grasped reluctantly at his penis until the breath was rushing so quickly into her lungs she couldn’t see for a moment.

Oh, God, she thought, her face burning hotly. She should not be doing this. Should not be touching him. Should not be taking advantage of him...because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? She was taking advantage of him. Kissing him, touching him...he couldn’t stop her because he was fucking unconscious and there wasn’t an excuse under the sun to make this forgivable...

She loved him.

Sakura squeezed gently at the soft, alien-feeling flesh and wondered what it might feel like for him. She wished he were awake to tell her, and yet that thought reminded her that if he were awake, she would not be doing this. She shut her eyes and kissed his lips, caressed him more softly until something changed.

She pulled away from his lips with a small start, feeling some stirring of life in her hand and she was absolutely terrified for a moment that he was waking up – when had that become a bad thing? – and what would she say to explain herself?

Sasuke wasn’t waking up. She realized, rather slowly, that something a little different was happening and it took every ounce of self-control she had not to dissolve into near-hysterical giggling at the thought.

He was getting hard. He was getting hard and it was because of her and the way she was touching him...and what did that mean, exactly? She didn’t know, but it was new and scary and exciting. She flushed more darkly, tension slipping from her in shaky giggles.

And then Sakura wondered, sadly, what this might be like if Sasuke were awake.

Would his eyes open toward hers, black and wide and hungry for her hand and her lips on his? Would he gasp and groan and grit his teeth and tell her to keep going or...

Or would he just lie there? Stare at her blankly and tiredly like she was wasting his fucking time just by being near him?

Her throat tightened and her eyes burned with tears. She didn’t want to think about that anymore. She just wanted to think about was how soft he felt, the perfect lines of his nose and chin, the steady inhale-exhale of his breathing...

Sasuke was so beautiful. She loved him so much and he couldn’t see it.

Or he did...and he didn’t care.

It was the truth, and it hurt.

Sakura couldn’t breathe anymore, sobs filling and choking her throat, tears sliding down her eyes and smearing slickly against Sasuke’s pale face. Sat up and away from him – still tugging on his hardness because it hadn’t occurred to her to let go – she pulled her arm from under his head.

She touched his hair and his lips and his chin, brushed the wetness from her tears away from his face with a flicker of something like shame. Sakura watched his near impassive expression – his breathing had changed and his eyebrows had twitched as if he were thinking – and all she could think to do was whisper, “I love you.”

He shuddered briefly, and there was the shock of something hot and sticky in her hand. She jumped back; away, away from him, her breath coming in terrified, strangled swallows and eyes widening as she stared at him.

What just... she thought wildly, even though she knew but she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to look down at her hand; she was already rubbing the thick fluid roughly off onto her dress until the skin of her hand felt raw.

Sakura thought, distantly, that she needed to wash his sheets, wash her dress, or burn them both but she began trembling and turned away from his bedside. She couldn’t bear to see him anymore. Not his rumpled sheets, not his sleeping eyes or soft, parted lips.

She stumbled, shaking, towards the open doorway and felt tears pouring more violently down her face.

She thought...she knew...

She was ashamed, and yet.

I’m not sorry.