for nicole, les, and tk for their encouragement and love. I guess...this is my honest attempt (key word, here) at conquering fictional sex. practice...makes perfect? uh.

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[a little death]

He is but a murmur in the hazy night.

In the red light district she'd been surveying, she wears an inconspicuous coat and ducks her head, but neither the badge in her pocket nor the oath she'd taken…nor a flimsy piece of cloth could stop him from finding her over and over again.

It has been two months since she has last seen him, three years since he'd been declared an international criminal, and twenty two since she'd first met him.

She hates him.

(She loves him.)

He is her heaviest secret, and it weighs on her more than does her heart. Her body is made of lead when she's away from him, and even more so when she becomes aggressively aware of the fact that he knows her—he knows her: nook, cranny, and soul.

She turns on her heel and begins to walk in the opposite direction, hand fisted around the police badge in her pocket.

It takes a great deal of courage to walk away, but even more to stay, and she has always been a coward. With a gross representation of a smile on her face, she knows, and it rips her apart to recognize it, but she knows that running had always been and will always be easier…for both of them.

But when his slim fingers wrap around her free wrist, all of the strength that she had—god, just let me walk away just for once —is gone, sapped from her in an instant.

It would be so much easier to rip the gun from its holster on her waist, press it to his temple, and finish the job. The amount of chances justice has given her are insurmountable, and yet…even for the blood that she knows stains his fingers as he brings her to a halt, she cannot rip herself away.

Gently—so gently that she can't believe that these are the hands of a mass murderer—he swipes his fingers along her jaw. Of her own volition, she pries her wrist from his grip, and turns to face him.

This is not her first mistake, and it will most certainly not be her last.

His fingers never leave her jaw as he kisses her just like they're sixteen…and for a split second she feels it, feels their years. She inhales sharply, and like always, when her arms have curled up and around his broad shoulders, when her body and spirit have betrayed her job…when his lips have moved just breaths away from hers and he chuckles, she knows she is lost.

She has lost.

She doesn't know how they end up in a shady inn that has the stench of cigarette smoke and sex, doesn't understand the mold on the piping in the bathroom in her peripherals, isn't aware of anything but the feeling of a springy mattress underneath her back and him.

He is settled between her legs like he belongs there—like he's come home to her—and when he looks at her breathlessly after he pulls away from her lips, she can't explain why she feels like crying. It does something to her—she can't explain the way she feels like there's no air in the room anymore or the sudden tightening of her throat, but he is so goddamned beautiful.

His yanks off his shirt in a quick, fluid movement before it is his skin to hers—and when did she lose her shirt and her coat? She can't remember.

But it is his skin against hers, his hands, so warm, against her ribs, palmed against the sides of her breasts, and in that moment she feels safer than she ever has before in her life. His lips drag from hers down her neck and settle over her pulse.

The moment is so brief, and in that time she feels his breath whispering against her skin and she feels more alive than she ever has before.

But he is moving again and her hands are tangled in his hair and stroking over his broad shoulders and down his sides, and it is everywhere, and he is everywhere, and this undeniable feeling that she has never lost—not since they first did this years ago—consumes her.

Her breath comes in heavy pants as his hands reach her thighs, and she can remember when they were awkward and young and innocent.

He was just a kid, and so was she, but she knew in that moment all those years ago, that awkward, planned, hesitant and painfully shy moment, she knew what it was like to love someone so fully. She knew what it was like to love him.

More often than not, these days, the feeling is completely gone, but in moments like these—she gasps as his lips meet a place they haven't seen in a while—she remembers.

It was and is more than being rid of clothing in front of someone—it's as though he's peeled away every last thing from her—her secrets, her desires, her guilt, and her nightmares and left her naked and vulnerable.

All her flaws are out in the open, every last detail of her life a map on her skin…and he loved her anyways. Maybe even loves.

She'll never know.

He hitches her legs around his hips, and his mouth meets hers in a completely chaste kiss before they come together, and it's like he never left.

His hip bones press sharply against her, but she welcomes the pain-pleasure, arching backwards. His head is tucked into the crook of her neck, and this guttural noise escapes his lips in the exact moment that tears begin to well up in her eyes.

She can't explain why, but this feels like a goodbye.

His name leaves her breathlessly, and she feels the tears slip fast down her face. "I love you," she gasps, and once she's broken their silence, it's like she can't stop, the truth slipping from her soul like a dying man's last words. "I love you, I love you, I love—"

And then his lips are hard against hers, and she's sure that he's taken everything from her. Her heart, her thoughts, and maybe even her sanity.

No, that's not quite right. He hasn't taken anything that she hasn't willingly given away.

He pulls back for a breath, and with a voice that's hoarse and that she'll never forget: "I know."

She doesn't know how long it takes for oxygen to feel within reach, for him to collapse on her heavily, but when he does, the heaviness settles over her bones, and when they're both taken under, they are more human than they've ever been before.

When she wakes, she doesn't know how much time has passed, but she lazily twists onto her side to watch him pulling on his pants.

"Sasuke."

He turns, looking over his shoulder at her briefly. "I can't stay."

"I know."

"I have to finish—"

"I know," she exhales, looking away, out of the grimy window.

He doesn't mention anything about her declarations made a few hours prior, and she does her best to forget them.

He doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, only giving her a loaded look as he lingers near the door, and when the door clicks shut behind him, this hollowness fills her, and with the sheets still tangled around her, she feels like lead again.

Her gaze lands on the badge from her coat pocket on the edge of the ratty bed. The gold gleams in the low light of the lamp, and she cannot stop looking at it.

Willing herself up onto her elbows and sluggish as ever, she reaches for the fallen coat on the floor, the sheets falling to her waist. Digging in the pockets, she retrieves her phone, and flipping it open, she stares at the time for a long moment before dialing.

She's still unfolded and empty when the sirens sound from the distance, the tires screeching. The lights flash through the grime and onto her sheets—red, blue, red, blue.

Maybe in another life, they could have been, she thinks to herself, the badge gripped tightly in her fist again.

Maybe.

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notes: mm, it's been a while since I've touched sasuke and sakura, hasn't it? ahh, I suppose I'll always come back no matter how long has passed. also whoa present tense what is happening to the world what is happening to meee—

(also, go listen to a little death by the neighbourhood. do it. you won't regret it.)

thank you for reading, darlings. review?