… yeah, yeah, I have at least three other multi-chaptered fics that I haven't updated yet, but yeah, this gets to be posted first. Came to me last month, so it has December elements to it, although it's "hopefully" understandable.

And now on with the tragic SasuSaku. 'Tis my tendency to be deep and annoyingly confusing. 'Tis intended.

My Sabotage
One Shot for No One In Particular

"This heavy, empty feeling in my chest… is something I didn't expect…"

Sasuke knew it would happen. And it did.

For some reason, on the scales that matter most, he always lost to Naruto. Notice that it's "always", without "almost". Because every time, he would realize that once again, he was left in the dust by his best friend.

Sakura wasn't his.

He defeated Itachi, and even though it hurt ("I… hated you too, you know that…" "Shut up… please." "…I guess you've finally made it… huh? … bet you'd be known now…" "Don't, enough. Just… just, please, don't talk…" "Why… why are you crying, Sasuke? … this is… this is what you wanted… right? … stop the tears… it's… girlish…" "Aniki, I hate you…" "I hate you too…" "You bastard…" "I said… I said stop… crying…") even though it hurt, so badly, that didn't cover enough ground on the "life scale", as what they wanted to call it.

He defeated the Uchiha Itachi, the prodigy of the Uchiha clan and the whole Leaf. Maybe even the whole Fire country, and that wasn't entirely impossible. He was the one who killed his brother, and yes, he even though he didn't ask for it, they gave him credit. They said it was his destiny to kill the killer. Idiots.

Hah, if only they knew. So what if he was supposedly destined to kill Itachi? What a joke. Naruto was destined to save to world.

He took the life of his brother, and in that way he saved the hundreds or thousands (hundreds of thousands, millions) of souls that would be lost under Akatsuki's command. That was a flat line compared to Naruto, who killed the legendary Rin'negan user. That was nothing compared to Naruto, who, even though now battered and bruised and lay beaten in a death rest in a hospital bed, destroyed seven bijuu in a completely controlled nine-tailed-Kyuubi form. That was a joke, compared to Naruto who had taken down almost single-handedly the organization hell bent on being the controller of everything.

In the face of that, what he had done was of no significance.

Maybe that was his only role. Aid the savior. After all, his best friend wouldn't have gotten too caught up with Akatsuki if it hadn't been for his brother.

What a pathetic excuse he was.

After all of the mayhem and the destruction, he was back home, sitting on a sterile white hospital bed, glaring through the wall at the blond, dead-last dumbass who just saved the whole human kind a mere hours ago, lying inert in the room next door.

It's not that he was jealous, but all he never expected to have his own thoughts of a future after Itachi. To be more precise, he never expected to want them to be there for him, especially the annoying, pink-haired fangirl who blurted out her feelings in a hope to get him to stay.

He was growing to regret that he simply thanked her for that piece of truth, because in the end, he was disappointed that every night, when she visited him and Naruto, she would be crying. And those tears weren't for him. They were for the dumbass, because she was scared. Because he was comatose, and that his vital signs weren't good. Because the savior of the world was fighting for his life. And because she cared that much for him.

"Shit," he hissed, wincing when the slightest movement sent searing pain shooting through his veins.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun, maybe I shouldn't be healing you this late…"

"It's fine."

"I'm… I'm really sorry, I'm getting too distracted, and–"

"I said it's fine," he snapped, not able to face her.

"O-okay then."

Silence. He didn't want to reply. He might just yell at her.

"I'll go see how Naruto is doing. You're going to be fine alone, right, Sasuke-kun?"

He nodded. He watched her go.

And when the hollow door shut behind her, fat drops of blood dripped onto his starched sheets and the cast on his arm, ripe against the blinding bleached whiteness. Biting his lip didn't ease the pain, but it served as a good distraction. She always called him that now, Sasuke-kun.

Sasuke-kun, do you want me to peel the apples? Sasuke-kun, are you alright? Sasuke-kun, I'm going to change this. Sasuke-kun, you need to rest. Sasuke-kun, there's something I have to pick up at the store. Sasuke-kun, you wouldn't mind me doing the paperwork here, right? Sasuke-kun, I think someone's in the other room, I have to check. Sasuke-kun, don't worry, I'll come back. Sasuke-kun, please let go of my arm. Sasuke-kun, I think he needs me more right now… no, no, Sasuke-kun, you're not allowed any more morphine.

Even when she wasn't talking to him, he could overhear the conversations ringing through the halls, and during those hellish moments he would curse his sensitive hearing. Yes, I think Sasuke-kun is getting better, but he still needs to rest. Sasuke-kun isn't improving as much as he's supposed to. He would understand, I know Sasuke-kun will, especially when it's for Naruto. Really? I'm sorry I don't know why Sasuke-kun keeps biting his lips, maybe it's a habit.

Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun. Bullshit. Bullshit.

He hated why she couldn't just drop the stupid formality. She had gotten over that when it came to Naruto now, didn't she? Even Sai didn't have a damn -kun stuck to the end of his name, and when he thought about it, it was only him who she did that to. Was he so fucking different from the rest of them, was that it? Was he that low, that too out of reach that she didn't want to lessen the already awkward distance? Why couldn't she stop attaching that single, goddamn syllable, or was it too much to ask?

He hated that name, and every time he thinks that she wouldn't add it, she does, and his heart sinks a notch lower because she's scared. Scared of him. Scared of taking it too far when she might not. Scared because she might be crossing a line, or was she plain scared of what could happen if she let him enter her life again?

That was rich. She was the one now who got under his skin, and she was the one who was scared of him? What a fucking joke.

It made him all the more envious of how close her bond with his best friend was. How, that even now he was a body pumped full of drugs, she would stay there, hoping against hope that he would get through.

She was the least wounded of all of them, aside from Hinata.

The fight lasted too short, less than a day, but the results had changed everything. After Itachi he didn't know what he had been supposed to do, and then they realized what they were really in for. Naruto had taken the Kyuubi's form when they arrived to their aid. The eight-man team of Leaf had been battling the eight-tailed bijuu. Hebi took on the Six Tails.

Day in, day out of the recovery process, Sakura would come in to check on him every now and then.

She would smile, she would laugh a few times. She would tell him how the others were improving. Kiba had just gotten his spine reconstructed, did he know that? And Shino's bugs stopped eating him from the inside.

For a few minutes she would go on like that, and he would be quiet, listening to her nervous ramble. He would be watching her though his messy hair that kept straying everywhere, his bangs that now hung even lower across his face. Once a nurse accidentally commented that he looked like Itachi, and Sakura had to grab him from behind just a split second before a chidori slashed through the woman's neck.

His body moved on its own that time. Of course the nurse ran away, silly woman. But Sakura stayed, her arms gripped tight around his torso, pressing him against her. He let her hold him to herself as he sank to the floor and into her when the adrenaline wore off that time, telling him stupid nonsense about how it was over and that he had nothing anymore to worry about. He played along because her warm breath had felt good in his ear. He played along because that was the closest contact he ever had with her where she never wanted to pull away.

But even that time it had ended the same. She would leave him, tell him goodnight, and that she was going to watch over Naruto for the night.

Next door, through the wall with chipped white paint, he would glare at them. And he would be alone for another night, one in countless consecutive ones ever since his clan was wiped out.

Other times she would cry during her visits to him.

Because Naruto's heart skipped a beat last night. Because Naruto coughed. The tiniest problems were enough to send her sobbing on his shoulder, because his best friend might slip away unnoticed just like that. And what about him? What about the pain she was causing him? When would she realize that he hated how she flinched when his fingers (accidentally) made contact with her skin? When she wouldn't understand the meaning of "I don't want to be alone" because she'd call for some stupid nurse to watch over him and she'd leave?

He would be always judging her, reigning in his feelings when she was in his room, silently watching her actions, taking in what she was doing. He was merely a spectator, and by what he would see he would know what she was really feeling about him. Trying hard not to meet his eyes. Fixing the get-well cards and the roses and everything that was being delivered to him.

Every time a new delivery would come, she would be the one bringing them to him, arms full with whatever came that day, joking that his fan base was building up and is stronger than ever. He wouldn't be amused. He would tell her that if she didn't recognize the name, she should throw it out.

She wouldn't be amused.

"Sasuke-kun, is there something wrong?"

"Nothing."

"But you're…"

Sakura doesn't continue, and he challenged her with an onyx glare. Say it. Tell it straight to his face, because that's the least she could do for him.

"You can talk to me, you have to know that."

"…"

"Sasuke-kun, you've been… you've been injuring yourself ever since we came. You can't keep doing that."

But oh he can. He can keep biting on his lips whenever he wished to, just to force her to heal him, to release some of his pain and at the same time give her reason to touch him. To stay close. Sit on his bedside and wipe the blood off him. Wipe his slate clean, help him recover.

But he stopped, because she said that healing him took up more time from watching Naruto.

There was a time before, when he was twelve and he was completely blinded by his anger for Itachi. He wished his fangirls would get a life, leave him alone, let him dwell on his hatred and the malice that was growing deep inside him. He wished Sakura would leave him alone, change her interest and focus it on Naruto instead, so that the dumbass wouldn't keep trying to challenge him, or tell him that he would order someone to remove the stick up his ass when he became Hokage.

Three years, an encounter with all nine bijuu, an injured best friend, and a more mature Sakura later, his wish came true. He regretted that, obviously.

Before his brother's death, he had been focused on one goal and one goal only. Kill him. All his hatred, his anger, those negative pent-up feelings that accumulated all through the years, it was channeled onto Itachi and all who stood between them both.

Now that it was over, he felt that centralized hate scatter between so many things. His purpose was over, supposedly he should feel free, but he felt the opposite. He hated how Naruto was taking up too much of everyone that nobody seemed to care about him any more. He hated how his pillows were fluffed up wrong in the morning by the early-bird nurse. He hated the hospital food. He hated how the glitter glittered in the cards that stood on his table. He hated the empty bed beside his. He hated the sun that glaringly woke him up. He hated the cast on his arm.

He hated.

He hated.

He fucking hated.

And it might be the reason he kept feeling himself sliding down that steep ravine to liking Sakura. Because as long as she kept up her nightly visits he was fine. She would talk, he would listen, she would let him cry on her shoulder. She would tell him she understood even though he knew she didn't.

Because in the mornings where she wasn't too paranoid about Naruto, she would enter his room and fix his pillows for him. And she would lean over him as she did so, and he would smell the soap she used to shower just a few minutes ago, and she would ask him if he was okay. Ask if he needed anything that she might be able to squeeze in between her free time and watching over Naruto. She would tilt a clear glass of water to his lips, and she would watch him drink with a small smile.

The food was terrible, but once again, during the times when Tsunade kept driving her out of Naruto's room, Sakura would check up on the others, and then finally come to rest into his room where he would always be alone. He still wore his cast and she would offer to feed him. He would tell her to shut up, then she would pry his stiff fingers from the chopsticks, and then do it herself. He wouldn't stop her.

She kept getting angry at how he treated the gifts that kept pouring in and kept him company in his too-big, dreary white room. That was one of the things they would always argue about. She would lecture him that he was lucky so many people actually still cared that he was alive, and he would shoot back that he didn't care if they didn't care, and that they could mind their own fucking business. She would stay quiet, her body rigid as they faced off with their eyes, but she would give in. He liked that she knew he hated the attention, and she would take away the presents and cards that were generically "fan girl".

Countless times Tsunade kicked her out of Naruto's room, and when she wasn't completely allowed to spend the night there, there would be loud banging and cussing and shouting in the hallway just outside that he was surprised that the blond dumbass hadn't woken up to that racket. After a tense ten minutes, more or less, she would open that door, a comforter wrapped around her shoulders, and she would timidly ask him if it was okay she slept in his room. Those nights he would watch her in that usually empty bed, and he wouldn't feel that lonely anymore.

"Sasuke-kun–"

"Is there something wrong with just calling me 'Sasuke'?"

His voice was hoarse, because he came down with a cold yesterday. The wintry air was chilling, snow quietly falling outside his window.

Sakura stared at him, looking surprised. Well she damn well should be, did she think he wanted to be kept at that distance for ever, just Sasuke-kun?

"I… well, if that's what you want."

He flicked his dark eyes away, instead glaring at the soft, red therapeutic ball in his palm. The cast had been taken off, and he had to relearn how to use his arm to perfection again. He could barely half-squeeze it, he was getting there.

"Sasuke."

With his good hand he pushed away the annoying strands of hair getting into his face, and he felt her hands suddenly pull it away that he stopped from trying to squish the innocent ball.

"What?"

"Sasuke-k–"

He glared. She cut herself off. She tried again.

"Sasuke," – she rolled his name over her tongue like it was foreign. Really, it was just taking off a syllable, one fucking syllable – "your… hair."

He stopped, watching those green eyes searching his, feeling her hands gently pressing around his. She's spent less time with Naruto, but she was still haggard over the late nights.

His hair was fine. It was longer that the spikes at the back were drooping already, but it was fine. One could see that there was the natural upward growth, but even those locks eventually curved downward under their own weight. He must be a sight to sore the eyes by now rather than the other way around, with the uneven clumps of those raven tresses flying unkempt all over the place, but he didn't care.

In fact, all the better.

"My… hair?"

She took a deep breath, and he watched her chest rise and fall, covered by the black material of a shirt of Naruto's. Naruto's. Naruto, again, not again…

"It's getting too…" – much like Itachi? – "… long. You don't want to have it cut?"

Sasuke stared at her. He didn't have to think over it.

"So?"

"… Sasuke, you… well, it's getting all in your way. Aren't you distracted?"

"Tie it back," he replied bluntly. Like the way aniki did it.

Sakura's expression was unreadable, and after a few moments he pulled away his hand from her clutch, reaching up and gripping her shoulder. She mustn't have expected it, but he pulled her nearer, down, lower, closer, just brushing his lips against hers, then letting her go.

It was completely out of place and he knew they both could feel it. But her lips had been soft, and a hand of hers came up to touch them, green eyes widening.

It must have triggered something in her, because even though he knew his face was poker blank, that I'm-okay-and-I'll-take-care-of-you-all façade of hers crumpled, and she hugged him, sobbing into his neck.

"I want Sasuke, not Itachi, please… don't do this to yourself."

That was surprising. He couldn't remember a time where he said he wanted to be like that murderer ("Why…? Why all this? You… I wanted to be like you…" "… let's… let's say that… you were… really… foolish…" "That's bullshit, Itachi." "… my foolish… little… brother…" "… aniki? … Aniki…"), but if it caused Sakura to be like this… then…

"It's just hair."

"Sasuke… you're not your brother… you've gone to be so much better…"

That afternoon, shorn raven strands of hair were swept away by the janitor from his room. It was the same day he first left them.

Days later the cold December wind was blowing through his window and he didn't bother closing it. Nothing much had changed, because even with the passing of that time, most of those who got caught in the battle were still suffering from the effects. The bijuu weren't normal enemies, after all.

Kiba was still choking up blood.

Kakashi was still blind.

Suigetsu was still supported by a water reservoir.

He still couldn't walk or use his arm properly.

Worst was Naruto, still in a coma.

But nowadays, Sakura came to him more often.

It had started when Karin came to visit him, breaking the monotonous silence in his room with her laughter and her flirting. He was happy for the company, because after the kiss, Sakura's visits lessened. It was now the redhead who was around. He still wanted Sakura, but his affection for this fiery spirit also started to grow.

One time she entered, crimson eyes glittering as she sat on his bedside. It was a month after the war.

"Guess what happened."

"Can't." Blank expression. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Tsunade," she said, but laughed and then restarted. "Tsunade-sama said we'd be Leaf ninja now."

That was obvious. He already guessed that would happen, but it seemed she was happy that it was official. After Orochimaru, she had somewhere to belong to again.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks. No gift?"

Silence. He met those eyes. He knew what she wanted.

When her hand came up, slowly stroking down the side of his face, he pulled it away, sighing with the slightest vexation. There was only one person who had ever done that to him.

But his traitorous mind reminded him. She had Naruto now anyway, didn't she?

He watched as Karin's eyes flickered to his hand holding hers before returning to his impassive face, detecting the slightest amount of hesitation, and she tried to take that hand back. He didn't allow it, holding on tighter. That movement alone decided what should happen. When she leaned in, he didn't stop her.

It was after a few moments, his tongue mingling with the redhead's, where Sakura chose to come in.

He knew anger when he saw it. He knew hurt when he saw it. That much was obvious.

That night he could hear someone crying in the next room. His sensitive hearing could pick up Sakura's voice talking to Naruto, telling him things the way she would usually gossip with Ino. Telling the comatose blond her problems, everything that she was feeling, but not dropping names.

Eavesdroppers usually wouldn't know anything about girl talk, especially if said eavesdropper was a guy, but this case was different to Sasuke. There was no other person that Sakura walked in on who were "kissing and god, Naruto, you know what? He liked it! I didn't think that… he would do that, because you know? He kissed me and I don't know if that holds anything special to him and…"

Blah blah blah. He thought Sakura was a fledging medic. Oh, correction, battle medic. Little difference.

Didn't she still know that patients in a coma could still process things that happened around them? Naruto could hear her. As much as he hated him he knew his best friend wasn't that dumb to not know who was being talked about. And that he would also be hurt.

However, after that he didn't need any more hints that Sakura was avoiding him.

It took a few more days before a cold-shouldered pink-haired battle medic came back to visit him in his room, the sky still indigo in dawn and she fluffed his pillows. She brought him hot chocolate in a thermos, and when he said he didn't like sweets, she said she didn't add sugar, and it was bitter as hell and she hoped he would choke on it.

"Three days."

"What?" Sakura asked, turning around from her spot by the window where she was looking out onto the waking Leaf. Seemed his cryptic behavior and speech patterns were something she still hadn't learned to read.

"Three days since you last came," he repeated, watching her.

She wasn't wearing any sweater, or jacket, just the plain, red, sleeveless blouse and the tan skirt over those shorts. As always. The weather was getting colder, and it started snowing the night before. She didn't seem affected at all.

"I was busy, sorry," she replied, rubbing her arms and leaning on the sill as she faced him. "Your arm is getting better."

She gestured to his right hand, where he was successfully squeezing the red ball. The force he used wasn't enough to hold a shuriken properly, much less be of any damage to anything at all but it was still progress. He just had to start again, start over, be patient…

"This isn't about my arm."

Sasuke stared at her, narrowing his gray eyes and suppressing his urge to smirk. Jealousy, anger, feeling that he betrayed her. Obviously. She was so pathetically easy to read, especially now when she frowned, trying to hold his gaze.

"Are you pushing me away?" he asked, knowing well how to use guilt on her, where to strike effectively…

"No."

He smirked, shrugging. Sakura was glaring at him, that wasn't a good sign. She looked like shit, like she hadn't slept, and that she had been crying for some time. He didn't know she could be this affected by just seeing him and Karin together, but well, he wouldn't put it against her. If she felt how he did when he listened to her talking about Naruto, being so proud of him, falling for him, then he didn't want her to feel that way, no matter how much she hurt him.

"So you saw me."

"What is the problem if I just have to take a break from all of this?" she asked, defensive.

"You don't look it. You're tired."

She blushed, biting the inside of her lip.

"You deny a lot of things. I know you saw me and Karin that time, and you've been avoiding me eversi–"

"I didn't see anything!" she snapped, then suddenly her green eyes widened as if she had said something she wasn't supposed to.

To have her at this point because of something he did, not because of Naruto, felt satisfying. It made him feel at least he was worth something to her, and at this point he would promise to himself to learn to treasure her, because he finally accepts that he was falling… falling…

It started with unplanned contact, accidental brushes, that led to intertwining of hands, leading to lingering caresses, and eventually turning into intense make outs in his room with their encounters growing more passionate each time, and he was starting to believe that she was falling for him. Wanted to believe that she was falling for him. Prospects of his best friend weren't on his mind anymore, and he keeps telling himself that at last he had found solace and was accepted, had something that Naruto would never, ever have. Someone learned to care for him, learned to give a damn.

Learning maybe, maybe to love him, his pitiful broken self.

Maybe it was because of the chill in the air of the evening, and the smell of pine and snow that came in blowing through the windows, or that his libido was running high, but either of them didn't care as their clothes started being roughly pulled off in between deepening, -heated- kisses, slowly drowning in the adrenaline rushing through his veins.

Skin was bitten, fingers tousled in hair and ran over bodies, bandages were unwound and tangled in, weapons clattering, ringing when the fell on the stone-cold floor, sheets unmade and twisted, a controlled chaos within their world that he hoped (he wished…) no one else understood but them, and only them.

He had her on that frosty December night, windows wide open, door unlocked, in that bare hospital room in the west wing where the sun always set and never rose. Her saying every breathless words uttered within that time, every whimper, all because of him. And she said one name, and one name only.

His.

Only his.

And they lay there, and he never knew that having her there by his side was so… warm. It was the only way that he could describe it. Something that Naruto would never, ever have. Sakura would be his, and as those green eyes looked up at him, searching his gray ones, he found it in him not to berate her this time.

"Don't… leave me."

"I won't."

His happiness, if he could call it that, lasted until they were almost asleep, when Sakura's beeper suddenly burst into alarm and came shrilly ringing throughout the half-empty room.

Sasuke watched as she sat up, grabbing the tiny device, her face lit up by the green glow that he saw, he completely understood when that unbelievable smile made its way into her face. There it was again, biting into something in his chest, hollowing out the space in his mind only for anger that bubbled to the surface as her promise shattered into billions of fragments.

"Sasuke, Naruto woke up!"

Two seconds later she was out his partly open door, and he was left behind alone as sounds were brought to life in the room next door, and him swallowed up by the shadows in his room.

AN: Toink.

Uh… I'm pretty sure there's no decent explanation for such thing, lolz. But seriously, don't hurt the NaruSaku fans, they're an incredibly innocent and docile species. Yeah.

Reviews and flames are incredibly welcome.