Chapter Text
The first time that Sakura fully understood what it meant to be an Uchiha’s teammate was when she went down during a routine bandit hunt after their mission in Wave Country. Though technically it wasn’t actually during the exact moment when she went down that she had her realization. She was busy being injured at the time.
It was supposed to be a relatively routine mission, again, and it had been right up until Sakura had gotten careless and zoned out near the end of the fighting, because frankly it had been quite a lot of fighting and she was starting to get tired. One of the bandits had grabbed her to take hostage. Her reaction had been to scream and stab him viciously in the arm. The bandit had cursed and backhanded Sakura across the clearing. She’d had a moment to realize “oh that’s a big rock” before her head hit it and everything went black.
Sakura came to surrounded by orange and with Sasuke standing over her, eyes blood red and fire pouring from his lips.
“Left!” Naruto yelled.
Sasuke responded with a cauldron of flame that drowned out the horrifying screams of agony that followed it.
“Sasuke-kun?” Sakura whispered.
Sasuke’s eyes snapped down, the tomoe whirling as he stared at her.
“Are you alright, Sakura?” he rasped. It was just like when he had been practicing his fire ninjutsu too much.
“No,” Sakura said. She felt very confused. That was definitely bad.
“Sensei says you’ll probably throw up,” Sasuke said. “How do yo feel?”
Sakura tried to swallow and couldn’t. There was too much saliva. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Sasuke nodded. “Naruto! Sakura’s up, I’m going to turn her!”
“Okay!”
The orange intensified with a burst of chakra. Sakura felt Sasuke gently hold her head and body as he gently turned her to the side. Everything whirled and Sakura felt herself heave. There was a splattering noise that was far too close to her ear. Ew.
“Hold the perimeter Sasuke,” Kakashi-sensei said. His chakra buzzed across Sakura’s head and neck, then down towards the base of her spine. “No spinal injuries, it’s safe to move her. I can--”
“I’ll carry her,” Sasuke said, already bending to scoop her up.
“Alright. Naruto!”
“On it Sensei!”
Sakura felt Sasuke’s arms lift her, the motion made her stomach heave again. Oh no, she’d just puked all over Sasuke-kun. This wasn’t how getting rescued by her knight in shining armor was supposed to go.
“It’s alright Sakura,” Sasuke said. “I’ve got you. It’s only a short run back to the village.”
Sakura had proceeded to lose consciousness again.
She finally woke up properly in the hospital, lying back on a bed feeling like she’d been run over by a herd of cattle. Something warm was sitting on her chest.
“You’re awake?” Sasuke said, leaning over to stare into her eyes. He waved a hand in front of her, watched her eyes instinctively track them, and then squinted. “Pupils are equal size. Okay. You’re probably fine. I’m going to go get the nurse.”
Sakura pushed herself slowly upright and watched Sasuke practically sprint out of the room. Mrs. Brown made a modest protesting noise at being woken up from her nap but shuffled in to Sakura’s lap, then pecked gently at Sakura’s leg.
“I’m okay,” Sakura whispered, and reached out to put Mrs. Brown’s head.
Mrs. Brown made a pleased noise.
Sasuke hovered with incredible intensity for a week afterwards. Konoha’s medic-nin did fantastic work but Sasuke hovered anyway. Even after Sakura had been given a clean bill of health, he had stayed just within reach for days, ready to snatch her out of the air in case she started to sway and tip over.
It was honestly incredibly annoying. It also made her stomach do weird acrobatics proportional to Sasuke’s taijutsu kicks.
And then after the week passed and they’d done the mission post-mortem, Sasuke had apparently decided that he was going to make absolutely damn sure that Sakura never got tired and lost focus ever again.
Sakura had always known that her teammates tended to train relentlessly, but it was another thing entirely to be kidnapped by them and forced to train too.
There was no chicken flying at her head, but there was quite a lot of Sasuke yelling at her while chasing her around the training field, slinging pine cones with alarming accuracy that pelted her around the shoulders and made her dive through bushes just to escape the barrage. And after running her literally straight into the ground, Sasuke would pull her up and force her to walk off her exhaustion, hair tangled and sweaty, and shove water and ration bars at her once she could breath without gasping.
It was hell.
The only part that made it bearable was that it was always Sasuke who pulled her to her feet, Sasuke who slung her arm over his shoulders if she was too weak to stand (Sakura had feigned a little bit of extra weakness some days), Sasuke who occasionally gulped down water from his bottle and then handed it to her without bothering to wipe the spit off.
Indirect kiss successfully obtained. Beat that Ino!
There was one day when Sasuke paused near the end of training to stare at her critically, looking at her in a way that would have been creepy if it wasn’t so aggressively analytical. And then he’d declared that she needed to eat better and asked a series of incredibly personal questions about her dietary habits and exactly how many grams of fat she was eating every day.
“I-- I try not to?” Sakura said. “Fat is bad for you right? I usually eat tofu for protein so I can avoid fatty meats.”
Sasuke scowled. “If that’s how you’re going to be then at least eat fish. And not that crummy lean stuff that’s just cheap filler. You should be eating mackeral and sardines and stuff. The fish fats are good for you.”
Sakura scowled back. “I’m trying to be pretty, Sasuke-kun.”
“That won’t do you any good when someone’s trying to stab you,” Sasuke had shot back. “Besides fish oil’s good for your hair and nails, didn’t you know?”
Sakura blinked. “Really?”
Sasuke blushed but crossed his arms defiantly. “There’s a reason my family has nice hair.”
“Wow, seriously?” Naruto piped up. “Holy shit, Sasuke, I can’t believe you’re secretly prissier than Sakura-chan about your hair!”
Sasuke and Sakura formed a united front in order to sock Naruto a good one. “Shut up, Naruto!”
Kakashi-sensei had finally put a stop to it about a month later when Sakura’s patience with Sasuke was at the breaking point.
“He’s just such a mother hen!” Sakura yelled, snapping her chopsticks in half from frustration. Kakashi-sensei silently handed her another pair and Sakura slurped up another mouthful of noodles. “Seriously! It’s like he’s stalking me to scold me for any habits he disapproves of! Don’t eat that Sakura, you could be using this time to train Sakura, you should wear this fucking pair of sandals they’ll make it--”
Sakura swallowed a scream of frustration and shoved a shrimp into her mouth. Teuchi quietly did not pay close attention to the conversation happening in Ichiraku Ramen that particular afternoon.
“Like honestly it’s not like it’s anything that important, it’s sandals,” Sakura groused. “And the brand I like is fine! I don’t need this-- this--”
“Mother henning?” Kakashi-sensei asked.
“Exactly!”
“It is a bit of an Uchiha thing to do,” Kakashi-sensei said by way of explanation. “Well, not all of them are quite this bad. My old teammate perpetually was herded by his chicken.”
“I just-- I get it, he thinks I’m weak and need help, and I appreciate the training,” Sakura said. She paused to eat more noodles, swallowed, then continued. “Like honestly, I really am getting better. But please.”
“How does he even know your size?”
“Right? It’s not like I’ve ever let him measure!”
Sakura paused.
“He didn’t measure me in my sleep did he? Oh my god--”
“I’m sure he wasn’t that invasive,” Kakashi-sensei said. “He’s probably just going off of memory and knew the brand already.”
Sakura huffed and drank a mouthful of soup. “Well it’s still weird. And way too smothering. And my sandals are fine.”
“Indeed,” Kakashi-sensei said. “I’ve had a talk with him about it. But you need to let him know how you feel as well, or he’ll be back at it soon enough.”
Sakura huffed and drank more soup. “Fine. And I’ll beat his head in if he talks back.”
Kakashi held back a chuckle. “That seems fair.”