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Chapter One
Because I think I posted it only on the SasuSaku comm, and now I cant find it XD Just cause I wanted to have links to all the chapters.
.five.
(& be a good girl, it won't hurt so much)
Sakura knows from the moment she wakes up its going to be a Liquid Day.
(liquid days are the days she has to pretend to be liquid - calm, untouchable, prettyprettypretty)
Sakura can tell because her dad doesn't get out of bed, not even when she tells him there's breakfast on the table. She knows because her mother won't come out of the bathroom. She knows because her parents unknowingly put the bottle of Gin in her lunch bag.
(but that's okay, really, cause she doesn't eat anyway -)
These are the days that Sakura goes to school in multiple layers. An undershirt. A polo. A sweater. A hoodie. Sweats, then jeans, and a longer skirt. Gloves. Arm warmers. Two pairs of socks. It makes the cold go away, just a little.
(but the panic is still there, thrumming, jerking underneath her skin -)
She doesn't talk until last period - her friends crowd in close-close-close too close, and they ask-ask-ask, 'what's wrong?' But she doesn't talk to any of them - except for her last teacher. She talks back, she argues, she says borderline rude things. He gives her after-school detention, without fail.
Sakura gladly stays for the detention, just watching the clock tick-tick-tick. When her time is up (nonono) the panic surges upward, but she beats it back (just like daddy) when she pulls out her homework, and does that as slowly as she can. Sakura knows she is just making it worse, but she prolongs the inevitable nonetheless by double and triple checking her work.
Eventually the doors start to close, and Sakura walks home, as slowly as she can, making sure to take the long way home.
On the way she sees Tenten, sitting on the curb outside of her own house. Her dress is dirty and the hem is tattered, with one long rip up the front that the other girl holds together almost desperately. There are bruises smattering her arms, in varying shades. The girl is holding an icepack to her face, which obscures most of it, but Sakura can still see the bruise that blossoms across her cheek.
But Sakura doesn't ask, so Tenten doesn't tell. (even though she doesn't need to, its easy to see that she's just like you -)
Tenten looks up at her, and she looks melancholy, floaty, numb. Her eyes don't even look - Sakura doesn't know how to describe it, but she just doesn't. She looks more at-peace than Sakura can ever remember herself being, and she wants it.
"He's broken a couple bottles, so he's going to want more." Tenten says evenly, and Sakura knows that the other girl isn't talking about her older brother - she's talking about Sakura's father. Sakura doesn't ask how Tenten knows - she always does.
"Oh." Sakura says articulately, when she really wants to ask is, 'how?' But she doesn't know how to do that, either, so she doesn't.
"I'll come over and show you sometime." Tenten promises with a beatific smile (would-be, because the bruise distorts, and her lip is split, and there's blood on her pretty-pretty-pretty skin -). It seems like she can always read Sakura's mind, nowadays.
Then there's the sound of glass smashing, and Sakura's father's voice rings out, slightly muffled. Sakura's whole body flinches, but she doesn't look away from Tenten, who's slowly lowering the icepack. The left side of her entire face is one big bruise, and her eye is swollen shut. Her lip is split, and there's a long gash across her cheek. Blood has already crusted from her nose, her mouth, and her cheek. She looks absolutely ugly, and the look she gives Sakura says that she knows. The other girl raises her hand slowly, waves only slightly, and Sakura immediately spins off to confront her fate.
As she walks she imagines she turns to liquid. Her features calm, the panic seeps away, and her edges blur. She is untouchable, unruffled. She will not feel the pain.
(atleast, that's what she tells herself)
Everybody says Gaara is homicidal. That he'd kill you as soon as look at you. That his hair is so red because its from the blood of his victims.
But Sakura knows this isn't exactly true - he hasn't hurt anyone in the years she's known him (unprovoked, at least. even still, she remembers the time he split open a kid's skull for messing with his sister).
Sakura thinks 'numb' is a better word for him than 'homicidal'. Because even when he snapped and broke that one kid, he didn't look like anything. Just blank - like he wasn't even there. Like he was just an empty puppet. He always moves slow enough for it to be true - like he's disconnected from everything.
Sakura has always wanted to be numb, floaty, calm. As it is she is ever-moving, and so cold. She thinks that if she watches Gaara, she will learn how to not be so.
When Gaara takes out a bottle of painkillers and dry-swallows two, she thinks she might be getting somewhere.
Sakura stands on a plain wooden chair in her shoddy kitchen, the medicine cabinet thrown open in front of her. She is in tiny shorts and a tiny tank top (all her bruises on display -) and she looks and feels remarkably like a child.
Tenten is on her knees in Sakura's bathroom, shoving a finger down her throat and heaving her miniscule lunch into the dirty toilet. She'd offered that that was how she'd gotten numb, but Sakura wasn't having any of it. She didn't like puke breath.
"Have any breath mints in there?" Tenten asks breathlessly, and crawls up onto the counter next to Sakura. Sakura doesn't even look at her, just stares into the cabinet like she's lost.
"…Gaara takes painkillers." Sakura says after a few moments, seemingly out of the blue. Tenten is unsurprised.
"Oh? Here, then." Tenten says, and reaches up, taking out a prescription medicine she is very familiar with. She unscrews the cap, opening her mouth as if to show Sakura how its done. Sakura's lips fall open obediently, and Tenten places two tablets on the other girls tongue. Sakura dry swallows emotionlessly. When the long-awaited numbness spreads through her veins, she doesn't really feel it - its numb, after all. Sakura just knows that the panic is gone, and that's all that matters.
"Just like candy, yeah?" Tenten asks, popping her own pills.
"…Just like Candy."
Sakura takes her pills with her everyday after that - sometimes she need them, sometimes she doesn't. And then there are the times when she needs them.
Inevitably she runs out - and decides to go to Gaara. He always has those pretty little pills, and besides - she thinks if she gets close enough, she could just absorb his numb. She's bored enough to try, at any rate.
Gaara didn't even take his clothes off. Granted, they'd been in the chem classroom, but still. It wasn't what she'd expected. He was good, of course - it felt wonderful - but it wasn't what she expected.
(but that's okay, cause if it was what you expected, it would have been much, much worse, even if you still saw him anyway, not gaara -)
Sakura was still struggling into her pants when the door opened behind the redhead. Sakura froze and crossed her arms over her naked chest. She hadn't even bother to put her underwear back on, her jeans were bunched around her thighs, and she had no shirt or bra on.
Dear god, she hoped it wasn't a teacher.
…It wasn't.
It was Uchiha Sasuke, the resident prude. (this is only said because almost every girl has thrown herself at him - some of the boys have, too - and he hasn't even twitched in their direction. He's had no relationships whatsoever, ever. Except Naruto, who can barely be considered a friend, they fight so much.)
He took one look at the mostly-naked Sakura and almost walked right back out. But Gaara beat him to it - he threw a pill bottle at Sakura, who scrabbled for it desperately, before breezing out of the classroom, the door banging shut behind him.
Uchiha averted his eyes as Sakura tried once more to struggle into her pants. She didn't know what was wrong (except the hem is broken again), but she wasn't going to get into them anytime soon, so she slipped her shirt over her head, backwards and inside-out. She wasted no time in popping two pills (one, two) and dry-swallowing. All the better, to deal with Uchiha (who made her heart beat fast, her palms sweat, her knees weak, made the panic flutter with a surge of shame -)
"You shouldn't do that. It's going to kill you." He says dispassionately when she's collapsed back against the chair.
"What do you care?" Sakura asks, trying to sound scathing. Her voice comes out weak-weak-weak, and cracks halfway through. Sasuke gives her a look, and she immediately goes back to struggling with her pants.
When he's found what he wants - a beaker, she thinks - he stops right in front of her, his face blank.
"The recommended dose is three pills a day. You need to stop." Sasuke says, quite firmly.
"…Fine." Sakura murmurs. And maybe she will stop - will he think she's pretty-pretty-pretty too, if she does?
He nods and leaves her there, half-naked and feeling used.
When he's gone, she realizes that now there are four people who've seen her bruises.
(daddy, tenten, gaara, sasuke -)
So maybe she will stop. Ino says she has something better, anyway…
Chapter Two
Because I think I posted it only on the SasuSaku comm, and now I cant find it XD Just cause I wanted to have links to all the chapters.
.five.
(& be a good girl, it won't hurt so much)
Sakura knows from the moment she wakes up its going to be a Liquid Day.
(liquid days are the days she has to pretend to be liquid - calm, untouchable, prettyprettypretty)
Sakura can tell because her dad doesn't get out of bed, not even when she tells him there's breakfast on the table. She knows because her mother won't come out of the bathroom. She knows because her parents unknowingly put the bottle of Gin in her lunch bag.
(but that's okay, really, cause she doesn't eat anyway -)
These are the days that Sakura goes to school in multiple layers. An undershirt. A polo. A sweater. A hoodie. Sweats, then jeans, and a longer skirt. Gloves. Arm warmers. Two pairs of socks. It makes the cold go away, just a little.
(but the panic is still there, thrumming, jerking underneath her skin -)
She doesn't talk until last period - her friends crowd in close-close-close too close, and they ask-ask-ask, 'what's wrong?' But she doesn't talk to any of them - except for her last teacher. She talks back, she argues, she says borderline rude things. He gives her after-school detention, without fail.
Sakura gladly stays for the detention, just watching the clock tick-tick-tick. When her time is up (nonono) the panic surges upward, but she beats it back (just like daddy) when she pulls out her homework, and does that as slowly as she can. Sakura knows she is just making it worse, but she prolongs the inevitable nonetheless by double and triple checking her work.
Eventually the doors start to close, and Sakura walks home, as slowly as she can, making sure to take the long way home.
On the way she sees Tenten, sitting on the curb outside of her own house. Her dress is dirty and the hem is tattered, with one long rip up the front that the other girl holds together almost desperately. There are bruises smattering her arms, in varying shades. The girl is holding an icepack to her face, which obscures most of it, but Sakura can still see the bruise that blossoms across her cheek.
But Sakura doesn't ask, so Tenten doesn't tell. (even though she doesn't need to, its easy to see that she's just like you -)
Tenten looks up at her, and she looks melancholy, floaty, numb. Her eyes don't even look - Sakura doesn't know how to describe it, but she just doesn't. She looks more at-peace than Sakura can ever remember herself being, and she wants it.
"He's broken a couple bottles, so he's going to want more." Tenten says evenly, and Sakura knows that the other girl isn't talking about her older brother - she's talking about Sakura's father. Sakura doesn't ask how Tenten knows - she always does.
"Oh." Sakura says articulately, when she really wants to ask is, 'how?' But she doesn't know how to do that, either, so she doesn't.
"I'll come over and show you sometime." Tenten promises with a beatific smile (would-be, because the bruise distorts, and her lip is split, and there's blood on her pretty-pretty-pretty skin -). It seems like she can always read Sakura's mind, nowadays.
Then there's the sound of glass smashing, and Sakura's father's voice rings out, slightly muffled. Sakura's whole body flinches, but she doesn't look away from Tenten, who's slowly lowering the icepack. The left side of her entire face is one big bruise, and her eye is swollen shut. Her lip is split, and there's a long gash across her cheek. Blood has already crusted from her nose, her mouth, and her cheek. She looks absolutely ugly, and the look she gives Sakura says that she knows. The other girl raises her hand slowly, waves only slightly, and Sakura immediately spins off to confront her fate.
As she walks she imagines she turns to liquid. Her features calm, the panic seeps away, and her edges blur. She is untouchable, unruffled. She will not feel the pain.
(atleast, that's what she tells herself)
Everybody says Gaara is homicidal. That he'd kill you as soon as look at you. That his hair is so red because its from the blood of his victims.
But Sakura knows this isn't exactly true - he hasn't hurt anyone in the years she's known him (unprovoked, at least. even still, she remembers the time he split open a kid's skull for messing with his sister).
Sakura thinks 'numb' is a better word for him than 'homicidal'. Because even when he snapped and broke that one kid, he didn't look like anything. Just blank - like he wasn't even there. Like he was just an empty puppet. He always moves slow enough for it to be true - like he's disconnected from everything.
Sakura has always wanted to be numb, floaty, calm. As it is she is ever-moving, and so cold. She thinks that if she watches Gaara, she will learn how to not be so.
When Gaara takes out a bottle of painkillers and dry-swallows two, she thinks she might be getting somewhere.
Sakura stands on a plain wooden chair in her shoddy kitchen, the medicine cabinet thrown open in front of her. She is in tiny shorts and a tiny tank top (all her bruises on display -) and she looks and feels remarkably like a child.
Tenten is on her knees in Sakura's bathroom, shoving a finger down her throat and heaving her miniscule lunch into the dirty toilet. She'd offered that that was how she'd gotten numb, but Sakura wasn't having any of it. She didn't like puke breath.
"Have any breath mints in there?" Tenten asks breathlessly, and crawls up onto the counter next to Sakura. Sakura doesn't even look at her, just stares into the cabinet like she's lost.
"…Gaara takes painkillers." Sakura says after a few moments, seemingly out of the blue. Tenten is unsurprised.
"Oh? Here, then." Tenten says, and reaches up, taking out a prescription medicine she is very familiar with. She unscrews the cap, opening her mouth as if to show Sakura how its done. Sakura's lips fall open obediently, and Tenten places two tablets on the other girls tongue. Sakura dry swallows emotionlessly. When the long-awaited numbness spreads through her veins, she doesn't really feel it - its numb, after all. Sakura just knows that the panic is gone, and that's all that matters.
"Just like candy, yeah?" Tenten asks, popping her own pills.
"…Just like Candy."
Sakura takes her pills with her everyday after that - sometimes she need them, sometimes she doesn't. And then there are the times when she needs them.
Inevitably she runs out - and decides to go to Gaara. He always has those pretty little pills, and besides - she thinks if she gets close enough, she could just absorb his numb. She's bored enough to try, at any rate.
Gaara didn't even take his clothes off. Granted, they'd been in the chem classroom, but still. It wasn't what she'd expected. He was good, of course - it felt wonderful - but it wasn't what she expected.
(but that's okay, cause if it was what you expected, it would have been much, much worse, even if you still saw him anyway, not gaara -)
Sakura was still struggling into her pants when the door opened behind the redhead. Sakura froze and crossed her arms over her naked chest. She hadn't even bother to put her underwear back on, her jeans were bunched around her thighs, and she had no shirt or bra on.
Dear god, she hoped it wasn't a teacher.
…It wasn't.
It was Uchiha Sasuke, the resident prude. (this is only said because almost every girl has thrown herself at him - some of the boys have, too - and he hasn't even twitched in their direction. He's had no relationships whatsoever, ever. Except Naruto, who can barely be considered a friend, they fight so much.)
He took one look at the mostly-naked Sakura and almost walked right back out. But Gaara beat him to it - he threw a pill bottle at Sakura, who scrabbled for it desperately, before breezing out of the classroom, the door banging shut behind him.
Uchiha averted his eyes as Sakura tried once more to struggle into her pants. She didn't know what was wrong (except the hem is broken again), but she wasn't going to get into them anytime soon, so she slipped her shirt over her head, backwards and inside-out. She wasted no time in popping two pills (one, two) and dry-swallowing. All the better, to deal with Uchiha (who made her heart beat fast, her palms sweat, her knees weak, made the panic flutter with a surge of shame -)
"You shouldn't do that. It's going to kill you." He says dispassionately when she's collapsed back against the chair.
"What do you care?" Sakura asks, trying to sound scathing. Her voice comes out weak-weak-weak, and cracks halfway through. Sasuke gives her a look, and she immediately goes back to struggling with her pants.
When he's found what he wants - a beaker, she thinks - he stops right in front of her, his face blank.
"The recommended dose is three pills a day. You need to stop." Sasuke says, quite firmly.
"…Fine." Sakura murmurs. And maybe she will stop - will he think she's pretty-pretty-pretty too, if she does?
He nods and leaves her there, half-naked and feeling used.
When he's gone, she realizes that now there are four people who've seen her bruises.
(daddy, tenten, gaara, sasuke -)
So maybe she will stop. Ino says she has something better, anyway…
Chapter Two