Lyrics courtesy of All Time Low

No slow burn here this is a rollercoaster

I.

So what are you after —

Some kind of disaster?

.

Sasuke never knows the songs playing on the radio station, but it's never been of much importance. A backdrop to the mundanity of his long nights, mild and muted cadences.

When it flips off and her voice is on the wire, floating to him on unseen and flickering grid lines, mirroring the layout of familiar city streets, nothing else quite matters.

"It's creepy," his best friend always says of his obsession. "Super creepy."

He's not inclined to disagree.

It gets worse. Sometimes he's called in just to know, for an infinitesimal moment, that she's focused on him. Never meant to do this as a habit, doesn't know when it began or why; granted, he's always had some antiquated, inherited habits from a family long gone. Listening to the radio is one of them. Muses, for a moment, on what his parents and brother would say if they knew what he was doing, if he was being a bit senseless.

Remembering that they're all dead, he shakes it from his mind and pretends that today, he'll actually speak to her.

"There's this thing, you know," Naruto always chides, "called the Internet. You could use it. People like her radio block, and I'm sure her picture is somewhere."

Though he hardly needs a photograph to know she's gorgeous, he's already done that too. Always captured in shadow and oblong angles, distorted lines sketching her into groups and school clubs and parties. After a particular year she simply seems to drop off the face of the earth, vanish from the digital timeline. Likely a transplant to the saturated urban wilds; he knows what it's like to rip up your roots and fall into a new place, mussed edges guarded by masses of others. What it's like to run away and leave everything behind. Like him, she hails from elsewhere, from the wind.

Naruto is his childhood totem, the sunny sidekick. Together, with their parents in the ground and a missing suspect for a brother, they made a pact and ran. Fell in here, in the steps of millions of others, carving out a tiny place for themselves in a vast urban jungle. Turns out, people love to drink no matter where they are, and so a bar purchased with trauma money ends up being the most stable thing they cling to, along with one another.

"Just ask her out over the radio," Naruto says, once about every three nights they're working, while wiping the tables, lugging cartons. "She'd probably think it's romantic or something. Once she sees you, it'd be paradise."

Extremely handsome, he's always reminded. By sobers, by drunks, by old women on public transit.

"Pisses me off. They think you're hot, and you act like a bastard." Naruto's accurate, perfect quips on his best friend's behavior.

So he contemplates it every time he dials the number to the show for those small segments she does; it's a great gig, really, to muse on esoteric topics between music sets he doesn't remember, a sublime and soothing voice floating in the deepest parts of night. Some of her favorite ones, though, are literature, medical news, and an infinite array of seemingly useless trivia facts that probably make her a crackshot player.

Sakura. Named after a flower, it strikes him as cliche; but then, he's a walking one himself.

.

.

.

"Well, Kiba, was it? Getting into the merits and drawbacks of dog breeding is definitely a topic I'm sure callers could chime in on, but we'd be here all night. Though you mentioned it's something that's been in your family, and the part about your mother seemed to get you riled."

"Hey, hey, are you a psychiatrist now too?"

A musical laugh, rich and warm. Sasuke wonders about this Kiba character's screwed up family life and tips the rest of the contents of a glass down his throat. Groans a little at the heat and the way her voice sinks into his skin. Sometimes, what he does know about her floats to the surface, all details gleaned from tidbits callers tease out of her: Green eyes, not from the area, pink hair (he's not sure of this one), always with a book. Likes sweets. And to the dismay of one Kakashi Hatake from a west side neighborhood, likes men closer to her own age but wouldn't say no to the scar.

Fuck that guy, Sasuke growls to himself.

But when he's desperate, when he's alone, he'll call and sit there, stringing along silences from his held breaths. Sakura's never rushed it, never makes it a joke. When he hangs up, she always invites him to call in and try again. Now that he's done it so often, it's impossible to admit it.

"Hey, asshole!"

Sasuke removes a headphone from his ear and raises his eyebrows. Naruto waves both of his arms at him in chaotic windmills. "Earth to Sasuke," he says in a slow, insulting tone.

"What, Naruto?"

Reaching under the bar and grasping a bottle, he holds two glasses in the other hand and puts it all on the counter with the heavy, weighted sound of glass on wood. Inspecting the bottle briefly, he shrugs and unscrews the cap. "Nothing man, I'm just bored."

Sasuke's scowl, if possible, sinks deeper. Wants to tell him not to bother with the drink, as the shift's almost over and it's Tuesday and nothing important ever happens on a Tuesday, or any fucking day, really. He has street-lit sidewalks to prowl and dark corners to linger at, hoping the specter of his only living sibling drags him into the unfathomable murk and finishes him off. Better than waiting for that day, anyway.

Handing him a glass, Naruto shakes his head. "They talkin' about anything cool?"

Sasuke focuses on the sound in his remaining headphone, letting the muted hum of the patrons fade out. He's fairly sure it's still the dog guy.

"Dog breeding and his Oedipus complex," he responds. Twitches in irritation, something soft tickling his face and neck.

Naruto smashes his glass against Sasuke's, a forced toast, not waiting for a riposte. "Late night radio attracts weirdos." His cheeky grin reveals sharp and pointed canines; in moments like these, he looks like some fox turned human by the shifts in lunar moods. "Guess that includes you."

.

.

.

Sometimes he wakes from nightmares, strangled in sheets and sodden with sweat. A cacophony of memories and shadows, faint carbon copies he's buried down deep. Overlapping with a girl with pink locks and outlines of his elder brother, it all melts into grey when he takes his first gasping breath back in reality, every time like rising from the dead.

Many nights he gives up, climbs onto the fire escape outside his window with a glass of whatever's left in his kitchen and waits for the first blushes of orange, periwinkle, rose — sunrise prompts him to switch to coffee.

Naruto always says to just come knock on his door; after all, they live across the hall from one another. He'll sit up with him. But Sasuke knows his best friend has mercifully found a way to sleep despite his demons, and he'll never begrudge him that luxury.

Lately, instead, he finds himself listening to her voice float around him until the show's close. Plays her over an old-fashioned radio, one of the few artifacts he took from his past, a vestige of a normal life before. Knotted up as he paces the floors while his obsession plays over the airwaves for hours, wishing he could bottle her up and sink into her, plush. Drown in her until he's nothing.

The later into the night she speaks, the edges of her words take on a throaty wobble, the caress of exhaustion and a job well done.

Finds himself thinking of her as he touches himself, in some bewildering blend of indulgence and penitence.

Feeling complicated and disgusted when he finishes.

.

.

.

"I think for now, sir, we'll have to agree to disagree on what the real didactic motives are in Oresteia," she says, lacing her gentle disagreement with a kind laugh. "We're coming at this from two opposing perspectives."

The man from before, Kakashi Hatake, chuckles in response. Rebuffed often but never quite conquered, he still shoots his shot. "Though this conversation could be enlightening, and more colorful, over drinks. Coffee, even; I'm not here to intimidate."

Unruffled, Sakura rebuffs gently. "Charming. But you'll have to settle for my voice instead."

"Ah, too bad. Can't blame a man for trying, Sakura."

"Too bad he's three times her age," Naruto snorts. Wiping the bar counter with a wet rag, he's been punctuating their listening session of the show with his own stunning and apt commentary for the last hour or so. Which mostly means the literature flies over his head in a wide arc and he criticizes the creepy callers instead. Sasuke has mild appreciation for his closest friend's defense of a woman that doesn't belong to him, or knows he exists.

Sasuke agrees with a quiet, "Pretentious pervert fuck."

"I'm sure she's used to it." Naruto continues cleaning. A patron gently raps a knuckle on the bar and catches the blond's eye; he nods, acknowledging the refill request. "A voice like that, she's bound to be pretty."

Naruto waits for Sasuke's retort, but he doesn't respond. Instead busies himself with checking garnishes and avoids his eyes.

"Oi, Sasuke. Why are you moping so much? I'm serious, I think you should call in and ask her on a date."

"You tellin' me this guy doesn't have a girlfriend?" The man waiting for his refill at the bar blinks slowly at them, leaning on his elbow to prop himself up against the intoxication weighing him down.

"No, can you believe it?"

Sasuke takes up a rag in his hand, wiping over the same counter that's been subjected to overwrought cleanliness out of habit and boredom. Mostly, it's to pointedly ignore them through action and mindless tasks.

The unknown man grunts, sinking a little lower. "Sa'shame."

"That's what I said!" Naruto's penchant for craving attention and having another person to ramble to other than his stoic friend blossoms, to Sasuke's frustration. He hates when Naruto picks up strangers like strays. "He has a huge crush on the radio girl. Like, obsessed with her. Listens to her show every night it's on."

Filling the man's drink generously to the brim, he flashes another toothy grin. The man taps a finger to his temple and flicks it away in a sodden, lazy salute. Raising his voice and directing it at Sasuke, he asks, "An' you've never called?"

"Oh, he has." Naruto responds for him and earns a menacing glare from his friend, who stops pretending to clean. "That's the worst part. He's too afraid to say anything, and she notices. She always asks him to; bet she finds weirdos interesting."

The stranger shakes his head. "Man. You needa go for it."

Sasuke slaps the rag on the counter with a sharp sound, mirroring his volatile expression. A sharp glitter in his dark eyes and the hint of a flush high in his face, his frown is chiseled, foreboding.

To Naruto: "Fuck you." To the patron: "And she doesn't even know who I am." Back to Naruto: "I'm going in the back to check inventory."

He stomps off, the back of his neck a bright red between the collar of his shirt and the roots of his dark hair. Naruto pulls out a glass for himself and gives himself an inch or two of liquor, then sighs, leans over the counter to tap his against the stranger's.

"Sorry about him; he's always a prickly asshole."

His companion waves it away with a hand, like brushing away pesky dust motes. "He's got some pain in his eyes. I get it. So d'you."

Naruto's grin fades a little, hanging lopsided. Drinks instead of responding, quiet until his newfound stray points a relatively coherent finger at something over his shoulder, a grin blossoming over his own face. "When'sa last time anyone used a landline?"

Naruto twists at the waist, following the invisible line drawn in the air. "Oh, that? It's good for deliveries and whatever, but most of the time I forget it's there. Pretty sure it's default for a business, right?"

"Can't say." The stranger shrugs and tips his glass back. "Never had'n."

"My only one. And cranky handles a lot of the professional stuff."

Naruto turns his back on him and leans against the counter. Folds his arms. Stares at the landline for a full minute before seeming to settle on something, and his fox-like teeth make another appearance. Whirling back around and slapping a hand on the counter, he asks, "Can you Google something for me?"

The other man starts rummaging in his jacket for his phone to oblige.

When Sasuke returns with a crate of fruit, he hears the stranger dictating a phone number to his idiotic friend, who punches each number in on the dusty landline. Whether he's taking his time because he's not quite sober enough or because he always handles the unfamiliar phone like a glass grenade, he's embarrassed on his behalf.

"What shit has he roped you into?" Sasuke asks the stranger, setting the crate on the counter.

" — 9, 9, 2," is his response. Naruto punches the numbers in with his thumb and brings it to his ear.

"Turn the radio down." Naruto waves his hand at Sasuke.

"Naruto— "

Before he can complete the request, he hears his voice in two places and tones, tangling together. In front of him, clutching the landline phone, and from the speakers, which is—

"So who do we have on the line tonight?" Sakura asks.

Sasuke freezes, bands of anxiety crawling around his chest tightly in the way of a straightjacket, heartbeat running away from him, out of control. The timbre of her voice throws every part of him into spins; imagines her in his ear, lips speaking beautiful nonsense.

"I'm Naruto," Naruto says, shooting Sasuke a thumbs up. The guy drinking at the bar gives Sasuke one too; if looks could kill, they'd be carrying a body out the back door. "Naruto Uzumaki. My friend and I listen to your show sometimes. Well, he listens to it a lot."

There he goes; rambling like a loyal pet and managing to embed himself with his sunny personality and total lack of boundaries. Sasuke jabs a finger at him and draws his hand across his neck in the universal signal to cease and desist. Naruto rolls his eyes.

"That's great to hear," Sakura responds. There's a smile in her words. Whether she's perfected the voice of radio or means it, she has a way of making a caller feel as if they're the only person that exists in the middle of the night.

"Since we all work nights at about the same time, it's like being on the same shift. Like we know each other already."

Sasuke's eyes widen and he mouths What the fuck?

A soft laugh, and now a blush surfaces in Naruto's cheeks. Sasuke looks murderous.

"I get a lot of people calling and flirting with me on this show, Naruto." A light warning, and she uses his name like punctuation, pointed.

"Right, right. This call isn't really for me to talk to you, it's to ask you a favor."

"Depending on what that is, maybe I can help," she says.

"The friend I mentioned, he really wants to meet you. He's way too shy to do this on his own, so I'm calling instead. He's my best friend, crazy handsome, kind of a jerk, and like I said, listens to your show every night."

"Interesting. I can understand wanting to do right by your friend, but perhaps he wasn't asking you to do this?"

"Heh, you're smart. And with a voice like that, pretty too."

Sasuke lunges for the crate.

"Anyway, he's about to murder me, so stop by the bar off Kinzie and—oof!" Naruto blocks a projectile fruit with his forearm.

"Is this an ad for your bar, or to vouch for your friend?"

"Can't it be both? Gotta go!"

The second lime smacks him in the face and leaves a howling sting. Slamming the phone back on the wall, Naruto erupts in hysterical laughter.

"You're fucking welcome."

Another lime bounces off his forehead with a dull sound. Tears in his eyes from the impact, he inhales deeply to counteract what Sasuke would consider, practically, giggles.

"Wishin' you luck, man," their stranger says. "You're definitely good-looking enough."

Naruto takes advantage of the pause in the assault to dart past Sasuke to the back, clapping him on the shoulder as he sprints by, yelling, "Right? That's what I keep saying."

.

.

.

But there are no new visitors to the bar the next night, or the night after that. Sasuke feels like he can breathe again, and adopts an even deeper, more sullen silence around Naruto. The latter, used to his stormy moods like shifts in weather, continues his amiable ribbing and moves on to other topics.

He doesn't listen to her show those days either, restlessly trying to find other things with which to occupy himself. With memories too harrowing to revisit and the decent ones interred under mental lock and key, he manages to read, brood on the fire escape, and have nightmares entangled with a girl with pink hair he's still never met.

Hates how real she feels, silk draped over the skin and always in his ear, lips painting words he isn't able to hear. A facsimile of someone he remembers from years and years ago, but then, again, he maintains a healthy skepticism of his instincts.

After all, they never saw any of it coming.

So it stands to reason that on an average weeknight nearly a week later, when Sasuke approaches the back door of the bar and nods succinctly to Shikamaru in lieu of any proper greeting he's been raised since birth to give, he ignores the knot in the stomach and blinks smoke away from his eyes.

Shikamaru leans against the brick wall of the alley, nursing the thousandth cigarette he's had since promising to quit. With a dangling smirk and a bored, glazed gaze, he raises his face to the cloudless evening. "You're going to want one too, the way he's carrying on."

Sasuke tilts his head and folds his arms. Resigned to hearing him out. "What do you mean?"

Another long drag; an exhale, shrouding him with chaotic ivory smoke. "He's talking a woman to death in there; I'm surprised she hasn't left. He'll propose to her before the end of his shift."

A sense, an impulse. With his hand on the handle of the door, his heartbeat kicks up the tempo and something sharp and sudden lurches in his stomach. Craving, aching, the anticipation of events weaving themselves together on a path he isn't able, yet, to see.

Of course, it could just be heartburn.

Leaving the door open with a few inches of space for their resident smoker, Sasuke continues inside. Eyes drawn to a stacked pile of mail on the office desk, he plucks them up and flips through in a detached attempt at responsibility as his ears pick up the irritating sounds of his best friend waffling his way through an interaction that surely will send the unlucky woman out. Charming in a boyish way, Naruto has the uncanny ability to come on too strong when he's dazzled.

Sasuke realizes he's left his jacket on and is about to turn back to the office—

"Antigo-what?"

"Antigone. You know, the play."

The sound of an empty glass hitting wood. Sasuke knows the voice like a ringing bell, vibrations in the soul. She could be reading the ingredients label of some obscure, imported cleaning product and he would follow her off a cliff, led by her siren call. And even though she's never met him, doesn't know him, might not even deign to look his way —

His feet carry him forward, instinct and desire winning out over his embarrassment and reticence, because there is no damn way he will let Naruto send her back into the night without him getting a glimpse of the face that's been driving him insane.

A sense of his destiny rushing up to meet him, the shifting season's equinox meeting a cold snap.

"I think you're way too smart for me," Naruto says sheepishly. Topping off the woman's glass, he hunts for something pretty, like a tiny umbrella, to add a flourish, and doesn't stop staring into her eyes. They're beryl, sharp, bright like jewels.

Sakura tucks a strand of pink hair behind her ear, pushing her open book a little out of the way between them on the bar. With a longing look at Antigone, she resolves that she'll need to abandon her evening of reading and being left alone; he's cute in a boyish, easy way, eyes like the ocean. Reminds her of a friend she left behind long ago.

Laughing, she reaches for the proffered drink. "You're really shooting your shot here, huh?"

Sasuke has memories of his mother straightening his collar, looking into his eyes, and reminding him that he carries the family name in the edge of his jaw, in the proud bones of his spine. In his gaze. This accuracy pierces him, apt and deep, when he crosses the threshold and the attention is drawn to him in the way crows ready themselves to feast.

The glass slips from Sakura's fingers when their eyes meet; it's corner lands with a sharp, strident sound on the wooden bar, soaking her and Naruto and Antigone with whatever sickly sweet concoction the blond had made.

A moment suspended in time: Sasuke's aware of how stupid he must look, but she's a faint echo of all the photos he's ever seen and a triumphant gestalt as the pieces, the insignificant details he knows about her coalesce in a single second. Again, the urge to drown in every part of her and exist in the atoms of which she's composed.

Bringing thin fingers to her lips, all that comes is a flutter of a whisper. "Oh."

Sasuke knows nothing about her, but something primitive tips his mind, a lurking instinct that she's balanced on the point of her own kairotic moment.

Holding one another's gaze as if there's never been anything before this, and nothing that came after would matter at all.

"Your book," Naruto says lamely, breaking the silence.

Sakura's fingers rest lightly on the damp pages, but her eyes don't leave Sasuke's. If she severs the connection, the earth will throw her off this beautiful ride.

Sasuke nods toward her book, breaking their spell. Blinking rapidly, Sakura passes the back of her hand across her cheeks as if she can dust away her blush.

"Right, it's fine," she murmurs, shaking off the excess water and placing it aside.

Again, they stare. Something in the atmosphere feels suffocating. Naruto grabs a rag from nowhere and begins to mop up the mess, feeling awkward.

"So you're his best friend." A statement, not a question. "Crazy handsome, kind of a jerk?"

Sasuke tries to respond, but words flit away, dry out his throat. Nods firmly, once.

"You're the one who calls in to the show all the time. But," she adds, as if a thought interrupts and extends the thread, "you never speak."

"How do you know?"

His question comes out in a tone bred into his bones; rich, aloof, a press of demand.

Something hungry and foreboding in her bright green eyes. "Even silence has its own sound."

At this, he's lost on what to say, feeling pared down to his barest vulnerabilities. Instead he says, "You need something dry."

Glances down at herself for a moment, shirt clinging to her skin and delicate bends. Sasuke tries to keep his eyes firmly on her collarbone, staring at a single liquid drop. Ignoring the buzzing in his hands and the ache in his chest, he continues. "I live in this building. Go to the employee door."

Sakura seems startled that he's speaking, surprised. Naruto ducks under the counter to busy himself with nonsense, hiding a lecherous grin.

Gently closing her book, Sakura lowers her chin. The unwavering, piercing expression she gives him nearly makes Sasuke's knees buckle, as if the decision she's made has twisted him into knots at her behest.

Corroborating, so accurately, his best friend's behavioral assessment, Sasuke turns abruptly away. Glances at her over his shoulder and says only a single word:

"Come."

It's a full few seconds before Sakura climbs down from the stool in a daze, hurrying to the back.

Forming a fist and pressing it against his chest, Naruto lets out something like a wheeze and a laugh, a comedown from the intensity. He wonders if they'll even make it out the door.

Before the door to the alley, still open a few inches, Sasuke deftly takes off his coat. His mannerisms signal years of familiarity with formal clothing and beholden chivalry, and Sakura isn't surprised when he drapes it gently over her thin shoulders. There's something interesting in the way he handles himself, precise and slightly formal.

Secrets she wants to dig up, turn over in the way of stones and treasures.

She places a hand on his face and another pulls on his shirt; the desire and impulse to undo him, lay him bare. The groan that vibrates in his throat and dances into hers as she kisses him fiercely tells her it's a possibility. No, a promise. Hot fingers slip under fabric and burning skin, tracing the outlines of muscle with her fluttering fingertips like she can pry him open at every sinewed close. A stupid fool for men like this, hard outsides and soft centers.

Sewing affection into every fold, forgiving them for things they've never said out loud.

His fingers wind themselves through her pink locks and hold her head flush to the wall as her fingers begin to make simple work of his buttons.

"Not — not here." Like it's ripped from his throat, a rich and dark command that leaves her dizzy.

Her potent laugh: Like chimes, like glass shattering and plunks of pieces falling around them in a rainstorm. Sasuke pulls back, feeling the sting and bruise of their lips intertwined with the hum of every inch of his skin. Hard against her. Wondering how anything or anyone can feel so much at once without killing it at the roots. She touches him gently and without warning, and he almost abandons the attempt at politeness, trying to smother and sink the instinct to screw her against the wall and leave her a gasping mess.

With her lips on his ear, the voice that's been stratified through a vintage radio and the woman in front of him collide in an instant, the splitting of the atom, destruction of the fabric of the universe.

"I'd follow you anywhere."

Grabbing her by the wrist, he swings open the door to the alley with her in tow. Shikamaru blinks in bemusement at the sight, still leaning against the brick, the remaining stub of his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. He's not quite sure he wants to know.

"Wait," Sakura says, planting her feet. Rubbing her lips, smoothing out the blotches of lipstick left in a frenzied mess. "You haven't told me your name."

Shikamaru's eyebrows rise nearly to the evening sky, but he says nothing. Easier to stay quiet.

Sasuke's fingers trail off her wrist, and his eyes glitter with the shadow she's glimpsed. The darkness she's eager to consume and explore. Again with his voice, a proud tone.

"Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke."

Sakura doesn't ask, right now, why he says his name that way. Another smooth stone to overturn, another layer to unravel. Something in the intelligent, coherent area of her mind thinks it sounds familiar, but it's currently unimportant.

"Well, Sasuke." Her voice is edible, throaty, and carries the promise of devouring him and leaving him for dead. It unsettles him that none of that bothers him in the slightest.

Closes the gap between them, with her hands in his shirt again and her body flush against him. Lips in his ear again dripping in silk as she whispers,

"Please get me out of these."