Twisted

By Yellow Mask

Spoilers: None overt.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

AN: I've no idea where this rather disturbing idea came from. All I can say is - read to the end. And thanks to my beta, justcallmefaye.

-xxx-

My climax rushes through me with dizzying force, the world dissolving to a white pinprick in the wake of my orgasm. I collapse on top of her, panting harshly to regain my breath, waiting for reality to slide back into focus.

And when it does, it does so with crippling force. My shoulder burns where she bit me, my back and chest sting with the mark of her nails.

Sakura bit me, Sakura clawed me...

She tried to throw me off.

What have I done?

The whole world freezes, and for long moments I feel nothing but the sweat running down my arms and the soft puff of moist air across my neck as she gasps for breath. Then I realise I am probably smothering her beneath my weight and force my lax muscles to work, to pull me off and out of her.

She makes a soft sound as I move away, probably of relief (or maybe of fear, as she wonders if I'm going to do it again), but I do not look at her to confirm it. I won't look at her, can't ever look at her again...not after what I've done.

I seize my discarded pants and yank them on so violently I'm surprised they don't tear. Sakura is making other sounds now, soft gasps and sobs as I gather my clothing. My whole being cringes at the sound, this final, damning evidence of how I've hurt her.

She curls up on the bed, her back turned to me as she continues to cry. Remorse and guilt and a depth of self-loathing I never knew was possible all combine to make my chest cavity shrivel like a dried pea. I almost reach out to her, wanting to soothe her somehow, heal her even though she is the medic and I have never been anything but a destroyer...

But I am the last person she would want to touch her now.

I know I should stay, wait for the police or the ANBU or whoever will take me into custody, but I won't. She's terrified enough already, and my presence is only going to make it worse.

I'll go, so she can report me without fearing what I will do to stop her.

Because most rapists want to get away with their crime, don't they?

-xxx-

I make it to my bathroom in time to throw up everything I have eaten in the past eight hours. The bitter taste of bile and vomit lingers between my teeth as I flush down the physical evidence of my disgust. I don't wash my mouth out – I deserve to taste this, to taste what I have become.

Even now, the images play before my mind like a dirty movie. The argument, the raised voices, words thrown in vicious anger, the snarl twisting her face as she shrieked at me...

"Nothing ever matters to you, does it?"

"Certainly not you!" I hissed, even as my hands twitched with the urge to reach out and snatch her and show her exactly how much she mattered to me and in what way.

Her eyes flashed like twin jets of flame. "Get out!"

My emotions, usually so closely leashed, boiled over. I seized her wrist as she turned away and jerked her against me, my lip curling in a sneer. "Make me!"

And then my lips were on hers.

I clamp my eyes shut, feeling more bile squirt into my throat as I remember shoving her onto a bed, ripping at her clothes...as I remember her whimpers of pain, her howl of agony and despair when I finally came.

I don't know what haze of lust and depravity descended on me so I did not register it before, but now it is all too-clear in my mind. I want to wash, want to shower and scrub away the residue of my heinous crime, but I do not. Our fluids are drying to an uncomfortable crust on my skin, but I won't destroy evidence. When they come for me, I'll make sure they are certain of my guilt. Certain enough to mete out brutal punishment – which won't be justice because nothing can ever, ever make up for what I've done to her – but will be nothing more than what I deserve.

There will be no reprieve, no mercy this time. At least, I hope not. I hope they make me pay. I don't hope that they throw the book at me; I hope they throw me to the wolves. I hope they crucify me before all the village, and then when I am dead perhaps it will be some small step towards healing her wounds.

No one will speak for me this time. Not even Naruto can forgive this – in fact, when he hears about what I did to Sakura, he'll probably the first to demand my head on a pike.

I'll have no compunction about giving it to him. I would never have allowed them to execute me for my betrayal in leaving the village and becoming a missing-nin, but for this...for this betrayal, they can have my head.

Because betrayal is exactly what it is; the worst, most despicable kind that exists. I was a traitor, a murderer, a deserter...and still, Sakura turned her back to me in the heat of an argument, trusting that I wouldn't attack her, that I wouldn't use my greater power against her...and I broke that trust. Snapped it into tiny, bleeding pieces and left it shattered on the floor. I used my power against her in the worst way possible, used it to defile the thing most sacred to her – her body – and take by force what she would never, never give me willingly.

Is that why I did it? When I returned, I recognised that Sakura had matured, that while she may see me as a friend, her heart would never open to me again (I had been foolish to ever think it might). I accepted that what was offered one dark night could never be offered again.

At least, I thought I accepted. Am I so twisted and sick that I would force myself on her because it was the only way I'd ever have her?

At that thought, the bile rises again, and I press my lips together in an effort to keep it down. If I throw up on the floor, they might think it's evidence I was drunk, or drugged, or in anything other than full possession of my faculties. They might be lenient, might give me a light sentence in prison, when I should really be put down like a mad dog.

I wonder when they'll come for me. Sakura's probably on the phone right now, sobbing that she was just raped by one of her genin teammates, and I can guarantee they'll know immediately she doesn't mean Naruto. They'll know she means me – Uchiha Sasuke, traitor, killer, scum of the earth and blight upon Konoha. They'll probably think I planned it; return to Konoha, get spared the death penalty, integrate back into society...just to rape Sakura. Kakashi and Naruto will probably think Sound warped me beyond all recognition.

No one will ever think I would have cheerfully slit my wrists before I did something like this to her. And I'm willing to do it now, to ensure it never happens again.

I hope they come soon, or I'll be tempted to do just that, and she should have the satisfaction of seeing me pay.

They'll come soon, I just need to keep telling myself that. They'll come soon...

Or will they?

Statistics estimate at least fifty percent of rapes go unreported, probably much more. Especially if the victim (and thinking of Sakura in those terms makes me fight back the bile again) knew their attacker. If they knew their rapist, and were familiar with them...often they blame themselves, tell themselves it was somehow their fault.

I hope Sakura doesn't do that. I hope she doesn't tell herself she did something to set me off – I hope she doesn't wash the sheets and fix her clothes and try to pretend everything is normal tomorrow and never tell anyone what I did.

Don't do that, Sakura. Make me pay for what I did to you. What I took from you, take back in blood and pain, and it will still be showing me mercy because no punishment can equal the one I forced upon you.

I'll give them the rest of the night. If they don't come for me by dawn, I'll walk straight to the Hokage's office and confess. I don't think many people confess to rape unprompted – the police might not take me seriously, but Tsunade...it was only Naruto's and Sakura's intervention that stopped her from executing me when I returned, so she is sure to string me up for this.

I'll confess, and sign a full statement and do whatever I have to do to ensure there's no trial. I won't force Sakura to tell her story in front of a roomful of strangers – I've already put her through enough to haunt her for the rest of her life.

If I have to report myself, I hope my cooperation doesn't inspire mercy. I hope they dole out the worst, most painful death Ibiki can think of, and I hope Sakura is allowed watch. Or maybe it would be better for them to leave me alive, to torture me everyday perhaps, while I live with the disgust and self-hatred that has curled itself through my body like poison.

I thought I plumbed the depths of self-loathing when I begged Itachi for my life. I thought I knew it when he showed me just how little my strength was against his. I thought I knew it when I abandoned my home and joined a sadist for power. Now I find that those emotions are like sweet, tender love compared to the acid that eats at my soul.

Even in Sound, even with Orochimaru, there had been a line. No unnecessary killing, no torture...and no rape. But now I have crossed the line, done what I swore never to do to the one creature on earth whom I really believed I could never harm. What sort of man does that – inflicts the worst conceivable pain on the woman he loves?

I don't know, but it appears I am now that sort of man.

And I would loop a length of rope through the rafters right now and hang myself if I didn't know that would be cheating Sakura. I have done this damage, and I can never undo it as long as I live. I have never undone any damage I have done to her, never healed any hurt I have caused...so let this be the first.

I hope that whatever punishment they give me brings her some form of closure.

-xxx-

The sun peeks over the horizon, and I know their time is up. They would have come by now. She hasn't called them. Though it seems impossible, my self-loathing actually multiplies as I picture her now, burning the sheets I violated her on, casting her clothes away, scalding her flesh in the shower as she tries to scrub me from her skin and purge me from her body.

I know what I must look like as I walk through the Hokage tower. Disheveled and wild, my eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and my hands clenched so tight the knuckles pop. But no one stops me; they can probably sense my urgency and that I lack any ill-intent.

At least, towards Tsunade. There is enough ill-intent towards myself to last fifty lifetimes.

I don't bother to knock; I simply open the door and stride in. The more pissed off she is with me to begin with, the crueler she will be to me.

I hope.

The Hokage's blonde head jerks up from the desk, and her eyes narrow when she realises who has interrupted her impromptu nap. "What the hell do you want, Uchiha? And why didn't you knock?"

"I am here to confess to a crime," I say, my voice perfectly flat and contained.

"From what little I know of you, there are a lot of crimes you could be confessing to. You'll have to be more specific," she digs, but her barbs have lost their ability to even irritate me, because she is right. All this time, I thought her contempt of me was because she didn't understand my position, my choice (and who could?), but now I wonder if it was because she knew me better than I apparently knew myself, if she knew I was going to do something like this.

If she knew, and still let me near Sakura without an armed escort ready to slit my throat if I laid a hand on her, then they should convict her right along with me.

But I don't dwell on this. I am here to do one thing, and one thing only. "Last night, at approximately eight p.m., I raped Haruno Sakura."

Halfway to her lips, Tsunade's sake bottle slips from her grip and shatters on the floor, liquid staining the wood like blood.

-xxx-

I am still in the Hokage's office, but now I am restrained with chakra-restricting manacles, as befits a criminal. There are no guards – perhaps Tsunade knows I will not resist nor attempt to escape. She has listened to my confession, but her eyes still hold a glimmer of disbelief. Probably wondering how even the 'heartless bastard' could do something like that to Sakura.

I don't blame her; up until last night, even I would have told her I could never hurt Sakura like that.

Footsteps sound through the hall, hurried and heavy, and I allow myself to hope that it's Ibiki, come to begin my punishment.

But it is not to be. The door is swept open and smashes against the wall, and Naruto practically runs into the room.

"Hey, asshole, some ANBU said you were up here! There's this weird rumour going around that you molested Sakura or something..."

His voice fades away when he notices my haggard look, the restraints, and Tsunade's forbidding expression. Silver flashes in the doorway, and then Kakashi steps in behind him, no orange book in sight, his one visible eye flinty.

"Granny, what the hell is this?" Naruto shrieks. "You're not taking this stupid story seriously, are you?"

Kakashi seems much calmer, but something about the way he's standing makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle, like there's static in the air.

"Sasuke?" is all he says, his voice seeming barely a whisper after Naruto's shout.

I repeat what I first told Tsunade, dull and dead as an automated toy. "Last night, at approximately eight pm, I raped Haruno Sakura."

Naruto blanches, and Kakashi's posture becomes stiff and brittle.

"I...I don't believe you," Naruto babbles. "It's not true. You'd never, you wouldn't...you couldn't do that to Sakura!"

"We argued, I dragged her into the bedroom, pushed to her to the bed and forced her to have sex with me," I recite blandly, my mouth moving with little conscious input from my brain.

"...you wouldn't have..." Naruto's voice is weaker now.

I raise my cuffed hands and grasp the edge of my collar, pulling it down to reveal the barely-scabbed lines across my chest and shoulders. Where she must have clawed at me in an attempt to get away. "I raped her."

"You're lying!" he bellows, seizing me by the collar and shaking me like a dog shaking a rat. "You're lying! You would never have-!"

"I raped her." Now that I've said it, it seems I can't stop saying it. My lips and tongue form the words again and again, like a tape on a continuous loop. "I raped her, I raped her, I ra-"

"Stop saying that!" His eyes are wild, the slightest tinge of red in the normally blue irises suggesting that he's dangerously close to losing control.

I hope he will. I'm on the verge of screaming for him to hit me, for anyone to hit me, for someone to make me suffer a fraction of the pain she must have suffered when I...

"Are you sure?" Kakashi asks, his voice low.

I stare at him. What the hell is he asking? Am I sure...what is that supposed to mean?

My eyes must have expressed something of my thoughts, because he elaborates, "Did Sakura file a report against you? Did Sakura say you raped her?"

"More than half of rapes go unreported," I tell him, my eyes fixed on a tile to the left of Naruto's shoe.

"Could it have been a genjutsu? Some kind of illusion?"

I want to hit him. Why are they looking for reasons to excuse me? They should be crying for my blood, flaying the skin off my body...anything besides standing around and calmly trying to talk me out of my guilt.

But I'm not worried: Tsunade hates me. She won't look for excuses; she'll look for an executioner...

"To what point and purpose?" she suddenly muses. "Hoping his remorse would drive him to suicide?"

I stare at her. I have to admit, suicide is looking rather appealing at the moment. Better than every person in the village conspiring to make it look like I'm the victim when it's really Sakura who has suffered. Suffered at the hands of her teammate, at the hands of someone who should protect and look out for her, not abuse her.

The Hokage watches my mouth turn down and seems to understand the reason for it. "I have to admit, Uchiha – you're not behaving like a rapist. I've never seen a rapist who confessed to their crime the very next morning and then practically begged for the maximum punishment instead of asking for leniency in light of their cooperation."

Naruto is silent now, silent and gaping. Kakashi is nodding, and a wild desperation is rising is me. Don't they understand what I've done? Don't they see I need to be condemned as one of the most despicable creatures that ever walked the earth, Orochimaru and Itachi included?

Don't they understand that I should be tortured and killed for what I did to her?

"Well, there's an easy way to settle this," Kakashi remarks. "Call Sakura in, see what she says."

My blood turns to ice in my veins. Can't they see the whole point of my confession was to ensure she never had to relive what I did?

"Don't!" I bark hoarsely as Tsunade reaches for the intercom. "It's enough that I...don't force her to tell you, don't make her relive it!"

She looks at me. "That's another point in your favour, Uchiha – I've never met a rapist who wanted to spare their victim from telling the story."

And then she pushes the button and asks Shizune to get Sakura from the hospital, and Kakashi's hand is over my mouth to keep me from shouting and interrupting her and I just want to bite down on his hand and tear him apart and somehow stop them from doing this...

The hand is removed, but I don't yell or thrash or rail at them. At this point, such a violent reaction to the prospect of Sakura's pain will only convince them that I couldn't have hurt her. And it's not like I can stop her coming now. So I'll wait – I'll sit and stare at the floor and wait for her to come in and break down at the sight of me and prove them wrong...

Light footsteps sound in the hallway outside, and something turns over in my chest. A soft knock, and then the door opens once again.

"You wanted to see me, Lady Tsunade?" she asks, her voice soft and slightly hoarse, as though she has been crying.

I keep my eyes on the floor, but I know the instant she sees me. She sucks in a swift breath, and I can practically feel her fighting for composure. I resist the urge to squirm, and instead silently implore the floor to open up and swallow me so she never has to lay eyes on me again.

"What's...what's going on?"

She sounds confused, and even though I tell myself she will not want my gaze on her, my eyes are too accustomed to focusing on her whenever she is in the room. They disobey me, flashing from the floor to her face in an instant.

Sakura has been crying. She's tried to cover it with make-up, but her eyes are still bloodshot and the lids slightly puffy, showing that she must have been shedding tears for most of the night, or at least early this morning. A scarf has been thrown around her neck even though the day is warm, and I can only guess at what marks are concealed beneath it.

"You've been crying!" Naruto exclaims, and I want to hit him, really hit him. Of course she's been crying – one of the people she trusted most in the world (though God knows why she ever trusted me) just used and broke that trust in the worst possible way – of course she's been crying.

"What's the matter, Sakura?" he asks, rushing to her side.

"I...I'd rather not say," she says slowly, her eyes darting around the room like a trapped bird, as I sit in chains in front of her and think that I will never, never forgive any of them for making her do this...

"Why are you wearing a scarf?" Tsunade asks, and I can hear a sliver of doubt in her voice as she wonders if I were really telling the truth. Good – she's beginning to think down the right path.

"It-it's cold," she stammers, clutching the material against her. "Anyway, no one's answered my question – what's going on here? Why is Sasuke chained up?"

Naruto is about to answer, but Tsunade steps on his foot.

"There's been an...incident..." Kakashi replies vaguely. "You should take that scarf off before you get heatstroke."

She shakes her head, and I grit my teeth until they ache. Only the surety that she wouldn't want to hear my voice prevents me from screaming at Kakashi to leave her alone.

"Could you remove the scarf, Sakura?" Tsunade asks quietly, and my rage finds a new target.

"I'd rather not," Sakura says quietly.

Her mentor frowns, and hint of worry in her eyes deepens. She knows – finally – that something has gone wrong. And now that she knows, she's not going to dance around the issue. "Sakura, as your Hokage I order you to remove the scarf."

My muscles jump under my skin as I literally quiver with repressed fury, desperate to scream at her to shut up and spare Sakura the humiliation of displaying the lurid evidence of what I did.

Sakura swallows and then slowly draws the brightly-coloured material from her neck.

My gorge rises at the red marks scattered across her throat – marks obviously gained from my teeth and tongue – revolted at the clear evidence of the damage I did to her body...and probably heart and soul as well.

Tsunade and Kakashi's eyes widen. Naruto, of course, doesn't connect the dots. Or if he does, he's ignoring the picture they make.

"Wow, you got bitten by a lot of bugs last night," he chimes. "But Sasuke's chained up because he burst into Granny Tsunade's office this morning and said he'd raped you-"

"Shut up!" I snarl at him like a vicious dog. The last thing Sakura needs to hear is the nightmare of last night discussed and dismissed like nothing more than a ghost story.

"You...you said you'd raped me?"

It takes a few moments to realise she's addressed me. I would have thought I'd be the last person she'd want to look at, much less talk to. My eyes have found the floor again, so I have no idea what's written in her expression when I nod. Relief? Bitterness? Hatred?

"Why?" Sakura's voice is soft and smooth, like cream, and my lungs constrict when I tell myself that, after this, I will never hear that voice again.

She seems to expect an answer, so I give one. "Because I did."

Naruto's strangely silent – probably muted by whatever expression must be on Sakura's face now.

A swift intake of breath, and then I hear her move towards me. My chest twists, and my sternum feels as if it's being crushed with each soft footfall. I see her small feet enter my line of sight, halting just in front of where I sit, shackled like the vicious animal I am, and when a warm hand touches my shoulder, I flinch away. She shouldn't touch me – how can she even stand to breathe the same air as me after what I did?

"You didn't rape me, Sasuke..."

My head snaps up, and I stare into sorrowful green eyes for a split second. But the contact burns me, like holy water on a creature of darkness, and I jerk my eyes back down.

"I raped you," I say in a low voice. "I sexually assaulted you, I forced myself on you, I violated you, I defiled you...I'm sure there's many more ways to say it, but they are all just ways of saying that I held you down and fucked you against your will and without your consent!"

"No...no..." she whispers, falling to her knees and cupping my face. Her hands feel so small, deceptively delicate against my skin, and I find myself obeying their gentle command as I let my eyes meet hers.

"That wasn't rape," she breathes. "I didn't..."

She pauses, looking a little embarrassed at saying this in front of our audience, but continues, "Sasuke...did I ever tell you to stop?"

My eyes widen, and my whole body freezes. I skim through the memory of what happened last night – lust and love and violence combine to haze the memory in softs mists of deceptive satisfaction, but now that I think of it, I can't remember hearing 'no' or 'stop' or anything like it...

I'm trembling like a newborn lamb in a blizzard, every inch of me shaking as I contemplate a seemingly-ridiculous idea. What if those whimpers of pain were moans of pleasure? Was that agonised howl actually a shout of ecstasy?

It seems incomprehensible. She is Sakura, beautiful in every way it is possible to be, inside and out, loved and valued by practically everyone in the village and I am Sasuke, tainted and warped, a traitor who crushed her heart beneath my heel like a cockroach...and the idea that she could have consented to what happened last night, that she could have wanted me seems ludicrous, laughable...

"Did you?" I barely recognise my own voice. Usually so flat and controlled, it now quivers with fear and the faintest whisper of hope. "Did you...tell me to stop?"

She shakes her head, keeping the movement slight so she can continue to hold my gaze. "No. I told you to keep going."

An electric shock of relief runs through my body, but I can't accept redemption yet. I have to know...

"I hurt you," I remind her, and then when she starts to shake her head again, "You cried."

She swallows again, and I can see in her eyes this is another thing she doesn't want to admit in front of an audience but she does so anyway. "You were leaving. I thought...I thought you regretted it." She doesn't give me time to absorb that bombshell, but rushes onwards as though afraid to stop talking. "Your words hurt me, when we argued, but what happened afterwards...it wasn't sweet and tender – it was vicious and dark and violent, and it probably shouldn't have happened like that, but you didn't force anything on me, Sasuke. I was a willing participant – more than willing – all throughout. It was consensual, Sasuke...believe me, it was consensual."

It feels like every muscle in my body suddenly relaxes. I lurch forward and she is there, holding me against her, whispering to me, stroking my hair, touching me like I thought she would never be able to stomach doing again, and though I've never fainted from exhaustion in my life I think I might be on the verge of passing out in relief.

"I didn't rape you...I didn't rape you..." I'm babbling like a moron but at the moment I can't bring myself to care. I don't care that she's soothing me like I'm an hysterical child, I don't care that Naruto, Kakashi and Tsunade are staring at us, I don't care that I'm shaking like a leaf. My whole world has narrowed to the slim arms around me, the soft voice in my ear, and that one glaring fact.

I didn't force her. She was willing – just as willing and wild as I was. She wanted me just as much as I wanted her.

"Sasuke...why?" I hear her whisper. "Why did you think you'd..."

"Because you're you, and I'm me..." I admit to her, breathing in great gulps of air. "I didn't think you'd still...after everything..."

She giggles wetly, like she's trying not to cry again. "You really are an emotionally-crippled idiot, aren't you?"

The word 'idiot' stings my pride a little, and I'm glad I can still feel indignant at the insult (even if said indignation is a lot less that it would probably be under normal circumstances). For a moment, I had been worried the events of last night and this morning had thrown me so off-kilter my balance would never be restored.

I feel her chakra-infused touch on my shackles, tapping the correct points with the right amount of chakra to coax them to unlock. The manacles separate, and slither from my wrists to the floor. Freed from their restraints, my arms take this as permission to slide around her waist and pull her closer as my head rests against her collarbone, breathing deeply of her sweet, fresh scent that I thought I would never be able to inhale again.

Some part of my mind dimly notes that everyone else has left the room, allowing us our privacy, but the majority of my awareness is busy soaking Sakura in like a water-starved plant in a flood. My hands are drifting up and down her back as though they can't get enough of the feel of her.

"I'm sorry," I murmur against her neck. I know it's probably the first time I've said it but in this case she deserves to hear it.

"I told you, you didn't-"

"No...I'm sorry for leaving."

She freezes in shock, and I move to slide my lips against hers. Even though we have engaged in a far more intimate act, I find that I am nervous – as though some part of me doesn't quite dare to believe that she really wants this, is desperate for reassurance that she wants me.

As though I can't believe she really loves me as I love her.

Sakura must sense my hesitation, because it is she who deepens the kiss, her fingers running through my hair almost feverishly.

"You're hesitating," she breathes against me as she rains kisses across my cheek and jaw while my tongue laps at whatever flesh it can reach, anxious to savour the faint salty tang of her skin.

I make a vague sort of affirmative noise, haltingly drawing back to let my eyes skim over her, lingering on the contours of her face as though seeking to memorise each line, each curve, each dimple.

It may be a while before I am truly comfortable initiating contact, and she seems to read this in my eyes the way she always has.

"We'll work on it," she promises. "Together."

I nod. "Together."

And then she makes good on her word, and draws me into another deep kiss.

End.