Prompt # 42: Still
Something from a 100 theme challenge I've started. Been a long time since I wrote anything. It's short, but longer than anything else lately.
Dis: Naruto isn't mine.
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When Sasuke stops moving, the bottom drops out. There is no air. There is no breathing. There is no living, existing, belief, strength, solidness. My knees are weak. I recognize the jar as they hit the ground, and I do not care that those around me are watching. There is no world.
Some akatsuki member attacks me, I think. Maybe? Maybe there is no akatsuki. Wouldn't that be nice? Well there surely isn't right now. There couldn't be. But why is he wearing the cloak? What does it mean? Red clouds? Red moon? Red blood?
There is some sound..."Naruto"...very softly...and it's getting louder. Someone's shaking me but I don't want to move, and I feel myself falling again, now towards Sasuke, his warm body, his body that better be fucking warm or my heart will stop too.
"Naruto!"
Oh, it's Sakura. She's kept me from touching him and she's crying so hard...why is she crying? It's okay, Sakura, he's still here. He's still alive, just knocked out, just a little wounded, he'll get better but you could heal him if you want, if it makes you stop with those tears. Don't worry. Why are you worried?
The wind rushes past my left ear and I see a kunai bury itself into Sakura's shoulder. I see that she is cut, I see that she is wounded as much as Sasuke is and I feel the bottom I'd attempted to manifest become powerful nothingness again.
The kunai knocks her back a bit, but she sits up again and looks at me, right in the eyes, still with those damned tears now.
"Naruto, we have to keep fighting. They're still attacking. Ple-" She stops because another kunai has struck and this time it was less her shoulder and more her upper chest. I look at her and there must have been terror in my eyes, but at least I am leaning back on my own, without her forcing me to, and she is begging me now.
"Please, Naruto, we need to run. There isn't any choice." Her voice is so broken up and red spills over her lips and teeth. It is a sort of disturbing lipstick, and I realize the shades of red in her hair are new too.
"But – Sasuke – We have to – Sasuke - "
"You're not listening to me Naruto!" she shrieks hysterically as if I were playing some prank.
And when she says this I begin to feel my own wounds, the thick, burning sensation of them healing around kunai and shuriken, the spaces on my back where my coat has been shredded and the wind whips through. The way I must be wearing the same lipstick she is.
I look at Sasuke, and he is still. So still. So so so so still. There is no air. There is no breathing.
"We have to leave."
I hear the "him" that she doesn't say and it goes against my everything.
We'll take the body, we'll drag him.
I'll break all your bones and drag your ass home myself if I have to...
There is a blow to my neck, and this time I really feel it, before Sasuke is gone, Sakura is gone, the pain is gone, and I don't have enough awareness to know if that elusive bottom will ever be coming back.
Sakura drags me home. There is a funeral. The backup had retrieved his body and I am jealous of those last moments when they felt his warm blood. If I had been stronger, that could have been me. I could have kept my promise...
It is a sunny day that feels inexplicably grey and we are inside for most of it. There are two pictures of him framed, guarding the casket: our team photo and his ninja registration photo. In both he is petulant and young and the lie I can hardly forgive myself for wanting to hold on to. In the coffin he is nothing like that last moment on the battlefield and he is nothing like Sasuke. The texture of his skin is the embalmer's powder, not the smooth pallor I've grown accustomed to, and dry unlike the sheen of sweat it held when we fought. He is in simple black cloth and I find that silly but there is nothing else to put him in. A missing nin can't wear the uniform of a jounin or chuunin. His genin uniform would never fit.
I pull the old hitai-ate from my pocket and lift it toward his body. I'd wanted to bury it with him, give him some of the village...the...
But when I think of it now it is the village he hates, the village that betrayed him, the village that idealized and destroyed him. Looking through the wavering haze of my tears, I start to hate that village too, for everything it's done to him, to my Sasuke, to me.
Sakura puts her hand on my shoulder, leans bodily on me, and I drop the hitai-ate. I am ashamed.
I'd never understood him, and had the overwhelming realization that now...
...now I never could.
--
I tend to write from Naruto's POV...my roommate wondered if this is how Naruto would act when he's sad. Do you think I should have made him more angry? I considered having him ask for death...but I thought of Sakura and realized she wouldn't let that happen. I hope it's apparent that she plays the strong role here. I think, when it comes to Sasuke, Naruto would need a support.
btw, angstangstangstangastudasbgb;rubgoarb