When he snapped awake, at first he thought it must have been by a crack of thunder. Rain was pouring down outside, and as he glanced to the window of his apartment he heard and felt another rumble, but it wasn't nearly loud enough to have woken him from a dead sleep. He climbed out of bed, setting his hands on the windowsill and staring out into the darkness. Something was wrong. He hooked a pair of pants with his toes and pulled them close enough that he could put them on without having to stop darting his eyes over the dark buildings of Konoha.
There, off in the distance - light where it should never, ever be.
-----
The mud was deep here on the untended roads, so he avoided touching the ground as he glanced in the abandoned buildings, searching for the light he'd seen. The rain made tracking by scent impossible and drowned out all sound but the loudest and closest. But somehow he caught a whiff of smoke, the almost-chemical combination of scent and feeling that signified chakra use tickling the back of his mind. He turned quickly, only to find Sasuke sitting on a porch with his back against the wall of an empty building, staring blankly over arms sitting on knees tucked to his chest. He was soaked and covered in mud but didn't seem to notice or care. It took Naruto a moment to process that he was sitting under a small table that still held the remnants of a shogi game and a tipped-over glass with a chip out of it. Several shogi pieces were scattered in front of Sasuke, but looked as if they hadn't been touched in years.
"This is where I hide," he whispered harshly when Naruto stepped toward him, as if Naruto were infringing on some sacred ground.
"You've got enough walls built inside you to not need to hide," Naruto grinned nervously through the almost-insult, and recieved a dark, tired glare and a mutter in return. Naruto bristled as his ears caught what most wouldn't have even heard. "Yeah, I'm a selfish bastard, but at least I'm not alone! My intentions never change - what I want stays the same -"
"I know what I should do," Sasuke interrupted him softly. "I should just set myself on fire, so none of you need to worry about me anymore, and I won't have to be hurt by you anymore."
"Was it a dream...?" he whispered without looking at Naruto's shocked face, brushing a gold general and a lance away from a square of wood Naruto hadn't noticed before. Sasuke's fingers - pale with cold - turned the picture frame over with almost loving care. He brushed his fingertips over the cracked glass, passing over his brother's and his smiling faces. "Was it a dream...?" he repeated softly to the water-warped picture. "Is this the only evidence that proves it...this photograph of you and I...?"
"Snap out of it!" Naruto yelled, stomping up onto the porch. But before he managed to even get more than one muddy sandal onto the planks Sasuke was there, a sound too like a snake hissing in anger escaping his lips as he grabbed Naruto by the hair and slammed his face into one of the pillars holding up the roof of the porch. Naruto cried out in pain as Sasuke twisted him around, dragging him into the foyer of the house to throw him on the ground, scattering shreds of paper from where they had lain on the floor. Naruto's fingers curled in pain, turning some of the shreds on their faces - and was met with his own eyes. Ragged edges where the picture had been torn through his body and head, his smile broken in two. He quickly glanced around in the dim candlelight and found more pieces - of himself, of Sakura, Lee, Kakashi, Gaara, Ino, Neji - anyone and everyone who had ever tried to reach out to Sasuke. Naruto looked up shakily, staring at Sasuke; he was in front of a mirror, but its surface had been darkened by smoke and grime and cracked at some point. All that could be seen was Sasuke's back, nothing more.
"I erased your reflection," Sasuke whispered with an evil smile. "Like a thousand burned-out yesterdays. So believe me when I say it this time: Goodbye."
He turned away, walking calmly toward the door and the rain that still poured outside.
"Forever is for good!" Naruto yelled after him as Sasuke stepped off the porch and through the wall of rain. Naruto swore and scrambled to his feet, but by the time he was outside Sasuke had disappeared into the storm.
"Was it a dream??" Naruto screamed to the darkness, mimicking and mocking Sasuke's words. "Was it a dream?! Is this all that proves we were friends?! These ripped-up pictures of us?!" His hands tore at his hair as he twisted and shook in disbelief. "SASUKE!!" Naruto screamed, drawing the last syllable out into something too close to a howl.
-----
"Was it a dream..." Sasuke whispered to the cave walls, huddled in the small space between his bed and the stone. "Was it a dream..." he could feel the almost-sound of the massive violet chakra slithering past his doorway and shuddered, clutching his knees to his body and burying his head in the circle of his arms. Only when the chakra had been gone for several minutes did he uncurl his arms, carefully unclenching his fist. He smoothed out the paper with more care than he had ever given to the choice of his weapons or his words.
It was patched together with pieces of tape like some child's frankenstein creation, corners crumpled and a few small sections missing, but the faces were unmistakable. No one could not recognize that grin, or that hair, or that mask.
"Was it a dream..." He rocked back and forth slightly, even his breathing loud in the silence of the room. "Was it a dream..."