Work Text:
Thunder woke him from a deep and dreamless sleep.
Rain drummed against the window pane, slow and melodic, rhythmic, soothing. There were times he woke up, like now, and he was –
Words could not describe how it felt to not be alive, to not be human. How much effort it took to remind himself that, yes, the rain was real, and yes, he was a real person who liked to draw, and yes, he even had a wife and son whom he loved very much. They loved him back, he was fairly certain.
He had a name, Sai, but it was not the name he’d been born with. His birth name was unimportant. He had memories of the past, but often he felt as though he were looking at the memories of another person when he recalled them. He had a reflection, but the pale skin and dark eyes and full lips he saw in the mirror never felt like they belonged to him.
Light invaded the room as a streak of lightning accompanied the thunder. It lasted only a second, and that was long enough for him to make out the shape of the person sleeping next to him.
Ino felt real, very real, in a way that he did not:
She radiated warmth and beauty, physically and emotionally, and although Sai had not truly understood the meaning of the word “beauty” when he’d met her, it was now the first word he thought of to describe Ino. If he dwelled too long on the meaning of words, and the intangibility and the subjectiveness of what “beauty” meant, he would start to fade again. Disappear. Continue losing his sense of self.
Maybe someday he would shrink and shrink and forget parts of himself and grow more and more faded until there was nothing left.
No, he couldn’t do that. He had to be present for Ino, for Inojin.
But maybe someday –
“...Sai?” Ino’s sleepy voice and another flash of lightning tugged him conveniently out of the darkness. He hadn’t heard the accompanying thunder this time. Must have been too lost in thought. “You okay, Sai?”
“Did I wake you?”
He’d laid as still as possible, almost perfectly still, and yet Ino seemed to have a sixth sense for when someone was in distress. Very empathetic. Perhaps it was a characteristic of the Yamanaka clan’s bloodline ability.
The thunder grumbled discontentedly, and this time Sai heard it for sure. The weather had either moved in very quickly, or he’d slept through the beginning of it. Ino too, apparently, as she replied with a yawn, “No, the storm woke me. Just happened to notice that you seemed… quiet… is all.”
The only time Ino ever hesitated with words was when she was half asleep. Sai thought that was interesting.
“I’m always quiet.”
“You have different types of quiet,” Ino pointed out, not for the first time. “Is something wrong?”
He’d explained these feelings to Ino before, and there was no reason to do it again. And she could literally step inside his heart if she wanted to. Sometimes sidestepping was a better option than feeling like a burden, and he always knew exactly how to distract Ino, “I was just listening to the storm. And watching you.”
Sai smiled slightly at this. His eyes, which had already adjusted to the dark since he’d woken up, watched the way Ino’s posture shifted from a mix of flattery and embarrassment.
She loved it. Sai loved it. He was pretty sure they both went out of their way to keep the fluttering heartbeats and the sense of awe and appreciation over one another alive as long as possible. Ino described it as “feeling like she was living inside of a romance novel”, and Sai was not an avid reader of romance novels, but to him it had the opposite effect:
It was grounding. Sai liked feeling his heartbeat faster, the pressure of Ino’s arms around his waist when she hugged him, and the way her hair smelled while she was resting on his shoulder. All of those things signified that he was alive, that Ino was a real person and he was too.
He was starting to feel a little better already.
Sai snuggled closer to Ino, though he was briefly interrupted by a stubborn blanket that insisted on bunching up between them. Ino propped herself up on one elbow, so he could yank it from underneath her. A few moments later they were settling under the covers once more, Ino listening to the rain fall and Sai listening to the sound of Ino’s soft breaths and heart. The skin of her bare shoulder was smooth and soft, and once she found a comfortable position to rest her arm, Ino dropped a kiss on the top of his head.
Again and again and again, until he was surrounded by Ino’s warmth and love and very little of the emptiness and dread he’d woken up feeling remained.
“I love you.”
Sai was usually the one who said it first, if only because Ino was often too busy thinking it to remember to say it out loud. “I love you too,” Sai replied.
She kissed him again, her lips providing a pleasant pressure against his hair, and the arm draped over his shoulders began to move. Closing his eyes, Sai finally relaxed enough to concentrate on the way her palm rubbed circles against his back – not who he was or what he was, but simple, sweet thoughts.
Because they had a simple, sweet sort of relationship.
Ino, who was just as capable of supplying those “romance novel fuzzies” as Sai was, mumbled into his hair, “I love waking up next to you.”
“Even when we wake up in the middle of the night?” Sai asked.
“Mhmm…” The circles continued, although Ino shifted their pattern, “and we’ll fall back asleep eventually.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ino asked again. “Stuff from your past wake you up again?”
“It was the thunder,” Sai insisted, though a moment later he had already relaxed enough to admit, “and sometimes I… worry… that I’ll always feel… broken… Like the parts of my life that ROOT tried to take away will always be missing.”
Ino’s shoulder moved beneath him, and her expression was surely softening as she looked at him in the dark. Sai knew that she could see straight through his fake smiles, could see the pain and unease hidden beneath his words even on a good day. On a bad night like tonight, she probably felt it.
She knew about ROOT, and about the time Sai had spent in the organization as an emotionless tool. Much of what she knew were things he’d told her himself, and a little bit, she’d learned from Sakura. Ino had been there to help him rediscover his emotions and find himself again. But she also knew that even though Sai had come a long way, there were still moments when he struggled.
“You’re not broken, Sai,” Ino said softly. “You’re healing. And it’s okay to have moments where you feel like you’re not all there. I’m here for you, always.”
Sai turned his head slightly, his nose brushing against Ino’s skin. He breathed in deeply, taking in her scent. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m just…”
Scared
, he wanted to say.
Afraid that he would always feel like this.
“I’m grateful to have you,” Ino finished his sentence for him, words spoken from the depths of her own heart, and Sai smiled a genuine little smile.
Ino’s affectionate touches and words replaced the fear, some of it, most of it. Maybe just temporarily. Probably not forever. But the thunder sounded closer than it had before, and the blanket covering his skin more real, and the thoughts inside of his own head less foreign –
“I’m grateful to have you, too.”
Ino yawned, her fingers still moving in circles on his back. “I’m here for you… Sai… now go back to sleep…”