"He will kill you."

The world falls apart in shades of black and grey. Every corner is a shadow, a shape, a threat. Nothing is as it should be. The past is truly the past. If every broken piece of his heart was a teardrop, then he'd cry you a river.

But Sasuke does't cry. Pain is easier to deal with when you deny it's there. Don't ever give someone the privilege of knowing they've destroyed you. They don't need to know the truth: you might be dying, but you still play the cards. They will only ever know as much as you allow them to.

Sasuke sees pain. Sasuke's so used to seeing pain, that it's more of a habit than an emotion now, and he doesn't stop to check whether any of the bodies have souls trapped within them. What's another life spared?

It could have been his past or his life or experience that made him so cold. The truth was bitter-sweet. He'd never hated so much before Naruto.
It was ironic how someone so loving can build a riot of negativity in his best friend's breaking heart.

It's not like Sasuke even cared. Hatred was something he craved. Something he looked for. He just didn't know he would get it from the one person he'd always hoped to keep as a good omen. Betrayal was a dark, heavy burden, and it didn't help that he deserved it.
However, Sasuke knew, in the end, Naruto was doing him a favour by pressing that silver dagger deep into his flesh. If Naruto hated him, Sasuke didn't have to hate himself. All he had to do was pretend to fight back till his final breath.

Sasuke used to hate grass when he was young. It was always so wet and thorny, and Sasuke has sensitive feet. Naruto, however, loved grass. Sasuke knew this because he watched, he listened when Naruto rolled around in it, laughing and shrieking and enjoying himself, exclaiming that it was so green and wet and nice. Nice.
The grass was thorny and pricked irritably at Sasuke's skin when Naruto pinned him down against the ground, stabbing and biting and scratching. It was anything but nice, and Sasuke hated it. Hated it more now than when he was young and his feet had swelled from whatever had got him when his shoes had gotten too small and uncomfortable and he had to walk barefoot for a month. Hated it more than Naruto - no, that's not right, because Sasuke doesn't hate Naruto - hated it more than Itachi, because it was a part of Naruto's attack. And though Sasuke loved Naruto, he hated his attacks.

The sky was dark when Naruto finally let go and walked away. Sasuke's heartbeat was slowing and he wasn't sure whether he would live another night. He could see - the sky was dark but the stars bright, and he swore, he swore that they were glassy, that he could see his own reflection in the moon.
His whole body was numb - so numb that he wasn't in pain anymore. The worst part was over and now it was just the terrible, teasing mental affliction of not having the least control over his body.
Then suddenly, the stars disappeared all at once and the darkness was more than just that of the night. The world had shut him out.

It was never ending. Sasuke shut his eyes tight - though it didn't make a difference - and prayed, prayed and begged, 'please, please let me die this time'.
He knew he wouldn't. His life played out before him three or four times and every time it was the same. He wondered whether he was immortal, or it was normal to get stronger after all the beatings he'd taken. It seemed like each almost-death was followed by a more violent attack, each of which was followed by a more intense almost-dead faze - but he would never die.
Sasuke hated these moments the worst. Lying down, anxious, waiting, wishing for death to take him even though he knew it wouldn't. He didn't want to be stuck in a coma, he wanted to die. He never planned to be stuck year in and year out in a restless haze, awake but not quite. He must seem dead, he sure as hell felt like his body was. The numbness was fading and he knew he would wake again soon - he was starting to feel the soreness in his bones, beyond broken no doubt, as broken as his still-breaking heart. It was a sort of pain that lasted forever, at times stronger than others, but always persistent in its aching.

Sasuke didn't feel lost, or alone, or any other crap emotion one of his upset fan-girls would have claimed him to be. He just felt tortured - and that was because he was. Because every time he felt a dampness in his cheeks from tears that weren't his, every time he felt the familiar feeling of warm, chaste lips on his skin, he knew Naruto wasn't planning on killing him.
Naruto always knew exactly what to do. He knew how to fight, how to calm, how to act. He knew what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. He knew how to make people love him or hate him or want him by just a certain twist of his lips and a gleam in his eyes. They were the perfect traits for the future Hokage. And when Naruto fought Sasuke, only to come back and hold him, cure him, comfort him, Sasuke knew that Naruto planned every last detail - planned the way his tears were cold and frightening and unreal against Sasuke's face, how his lips were warm and heated and swollen, freshly kissed and almost teasing against Sasuke's bleeding skin.

When Naruto came, Sasuke would never speak - whether he was awake or not, whether he was able to or couldn't. Sasuke would never say a word, never make a sound. But he would listen, memorizing every thing about Naruto, memorizing the way he groaned and scowled and hummed and cursed. When he could see, he'd memorize the way Naruto's eyes lit up when Sasuke tried pointlessly to fight back. When he was out, he'd memorize the way Naruto's voice was soft and each breath uneven, the way his heart beat more firmly and loudly than Sasuke's. He was never surprise by that, he knew that in his state, his heart was bound to be weak and flail, but Naruto's was so alive.
The sound of Naruto's strong heartbeat was the most annoying thing Sasuke ever heard. He would listen and try not to, but listen all the same, and fight back tears, and he'd stop praying to ask himself why his heart was the only one breaking.

"You asked for retribution - you asked for death, and he will kill you. Just like you have killed everyone he knows, you will die by his hands among their bodies."
It was a lie.