This is the first prompt I'm writing for a contest... yeah. It's confusing, but if you really look hard enough you can see how it matches the prompt... and because I'm lazy and frustrated, I decided to give it the same title.

So, basically... Sasuke being an emo-ass and thinking he should be dead. He's on meds, with Naruto and slightly insane from something you'll never know. Why? Because he and Naruto almost got killed. In his memory, he had died. He was dead, is dead and will remain dead... or will he?

Warnings: Implied yaoi. Nothing grafic. (Bummer, I know.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto... but uh, yeah. Nevermind.

Without further ado I give you...

In Memory

His hands are cold and calloused over my skin, like metal bars in their stiff movements. I can barely feel them, but the sensation of nipping, frigid bitter air is something foreign in this blazing heat. A warm room, hot oxygen pulling through my teeth in a hiss that's all too loud and ear shattering as he, once again, puts those hands to use. Good use, I might add, as I shake and pinch my eyelids together as close as they can, breathing going rigid swiftly, unsettlingly. It's then that I realize I feel as if I'm being crushed—I can't breathe normally. Stars float in the edges of my sight and I try to grasp onto the light, darkness reigning in. The ruffle of sheets is all there is.

Blackness.

--

By the time my eyes open I'm already grimacing, feeling the aftermath of what I had done the night before—or maybe many nights before, I can't be sure anymore—and quickly shift so that it's less troubling. An arm, my arm, goes to cover my eyes from the unsightly sheen of light filtering in from the window and I groan once for good measure. Maybe twice, because my mind is so fogged with headache and hangover that I can't think strait. I can't feel strait either, but that's something I'm grateful for; I can't stand pain, but it always seems to find me in the situation I'm in.

This situation, I have to remind myself, is all my own doing. But I can't help it, because I'm weak at heart in my own solitude. This loneliness is the pain I bring myself, and yet it's like a drug and continues to reform itself in front of my eyes, taunting me with its fool's gold. I grasp and reach for it, of course, like a stupid child.

My arm finally slides down from my face, laying limp at my side. My pillow is long gone across the room; I find them unnecessary these days. As well as blankets and anything more than a thin sheet to cover myself in the morning, after all I've done, is there any more I deserve? Yes, of course, but I tell myself that anyway. Oddly, the pain makes it that much bearable. Self-pity and hatred makes my days go by smoother, the emotions other and loathing at myself are too much to bear, so I settle for abhorrence at myself.

Sooner or later I have to get up from this bed and take a shower, but the warmth is so inviting, the bed willing me to close my eyes once more and envelope my mind in a haze that's pleasant and numbing. It seems nice, but I sigh and resign myself to another normal day.

I get up; I wash my face to wake up without looking into the mirror. A shower is next with hot water, scolding and soothing. It wrings the kinks out and washes away the filth from nights' past. I can still feel the lower part of my body aching, more so than the raging headache beating at the back of my skull. For that very reason is why I pour the shampoo into my hands early rather than soak in the melodic water more, massaging it into my hair.

Cool linoleum slaps the bottom of my feet as I get out, drops of water falling with small splashed to the floor—I manage to ignore the cold. My towel is forgotten and instead I go straight to the cabinet above the sink, reaching for something to ease the pain. I find the bottle I'm searching for, falter before I grab it, and switch my target to grasp something else. Instead of white, this bottle is orange and transparent—a prescription drug. Lexapro practically screams from the label, though it is small compared to the many warnings in the paragraph below it. Along with the name "Sasuke Uchiha", there are also precautions and directions to take it.

I ignore them, taking two out instead of one and dry swallowing them like a famished dog. I only gag once before getting them down and grabbing the sides of the sink, hunched over and panting, knowing myself to be hyperventilating for no reason at all once again.

What am I doing? Do I want to die?

My thoughts run into each other as I stare, determined not to look up, at the water running down the sink. It occurs to me that I forgot to turn it off before stepping into the shower. I hold myself back from laughing dryly without humor, but smile crookedly while running a hand through my disheveled, wet hair. My eyes are flickering to and fro without my consent, and my vision swirls into a red hue, black rimming the edge of my sight like the night before.

"…ke? Sasuke?"

Someone's talking to me, I don't want to hear. I ignore it, watching the water cascade into a typhoon in my mind, into the swirling darkness of the metaphorical melancholy of my mind. I can no longer feel or gain control of my hands, but I see them in my peripheral vision, still gripping tightly onto the edge of my sink, our sink, his sink. I don't own anything I want nothing. The only thing I desire are the pills spilled on the floor, and the clothes thrown across the room beside the bathroom I'm currently in.

What's wrong with me? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with us?

I can answer that.

Everything.

The life of this world should now be forbidden to me. I shouldn't be allowed entrance, yet here I am, alive and breathing. Not so much the latter since now I'm sure that sting in my chest and the haze wafting in my vision is the aftermath of insufficient air. But I don't need it, we shouldn't need it. We're both supposed to be dead, because we did die, we were always dead in the presence of that man, and yet… we're here. We're breathing in oxygen that burns our lungs with every puff of tobacco we inhale of our own consent, walking every day to our jobs to eat and sleep in a warm bed, feeling the sinful touches of each other's bodies every night when we fuck each other for consolation.

But I need it. I need this. I need…

"…Sasuke?"

"Naruto," I feel the weight pressure on my legs give way. I'm lying on my back, feeling the sheets beneath me that smell new and fresh as they had been yesterday. A breeze alerts me that the window was, is still open. And the tang of a cigarette tells me that someone is smoking. "…put it out," I finish.

Somehow I manage to peel my right eye open, looking toward the source of the air and the creator of the smoke tainting my lungs. Yellow hair, scarred cheeks and tan skin meet my eyes once more, not in the aluminous sheen of the moon this time, but in the rays of the afternoon sun and the backdrop of the city streets of New York. It's odd, strange and surprisingly refreshing.

"Put it out," I demand more confidently.

He tilts his head, gives me a strange look that I find normal. Nothing should be normal after all that's happened, and yet…it is.

"Fine, bastard."

Is everything normal again?

As the tip meets the cement, a last dwindling stream of smoke dissipates into the air.

Yes, and there it is. Love it, hate it, review it!

Either way, thank you for reading.