Brief story time: this was originally supposed to be part if Serpentine, but I wound up deciding it didn't quite fit in. I still wanted to publish it, though, so here we are- consider it a deleted scene, I guess!
If you liked this, please favorite/review! Thanks everyone!
Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition
Summer exhales its final breaths over the village, the late August sunset bathing Konoha in a melancholy golden glow.
Past the bustling shops and busy high street, away from the cheerful voices of playing children and chattering wives, the old Uchiha compound stands deserted- a lonely shadow looming at the very edge of the village's western border. The police tape around the compound is torn and faded, but still stubbornly standing after all these years.
Sasuke takes a deep breath, steels his nerves, and steps over the tape.
The moment his feet touch the ground on the other side, his entire body goes cold. His heart seizes painfully in his chest; the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as half-buried memories come barreling full-tilt to the forefront of his mind.
"Big brother, what's going on?! Mother and Father- are they-"
He shakes his head violently, grits his teeth, and walks stubbornly forward.
Rain and wind and time have washed the pavement clean, erasing the blood and viscera of that horrible event, the bodies carted off long ago. Still, panes of broken glass, doors hanging off their hinges, and the eerie quiet of the abandoned compound remain, silently attesting to what happened that night.
Ghosts flit on the edges of Sasuke's vision- ghosts of people he'd called his family. It takes an obscene amount of effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other; he has to stop to gather his resolve. To let the ghosts talk to him.
He stands very still, closes his eyes, holds his breath and lets their voices wash over him- as clear to him now as when he first heard them.
"Hey, Sasuke- off to school pretty early, aren't you?"
"Sasuke, I made Takoyaki! Would you like some?"
"When's your big brother getting home, Sasuke? He's been gone for a long time, hasn't he?"
"Sasuke-chan, you're getting so tall! How old will you be this month?"
"Give these sweets to Itachi when he comes home, alright, Sasuke? He's looking so thin these days!"
...When he's had enough of the ghosts and their words, Sasuke opens his eyes once more, and continues on. His stride is slow, and heavy- as if his legs are encased in concrete. But he moves on.
(He doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to remember. But he has to.)
He finally reaches his destination- the house in the center of the compound. The house where he'd grown up.
Sasuke stares, for a long time, at the hollow shell of his childhood home. At the patch of dirt and crackly weeds that was once Mother's garden, where Sasuke would sneak juicy, sun-warmed tomatoes when she had her back turned. At the targets tied to the trees at the side of the house, where father showed him how to throw a kunai. At the porch where, with a kind voice and a patient hand, Itachi had taught him to write.
"Somehow I knew I'd find you here."
Sasuke startles, turning on his heel to face the person who dared to interrupt his solitude.
"What do you want?" he growls at Kakashi, quickly turning his back once more (though he can't see Kakashi's face, he knows the man is smiling at him, and he doesn't like it).
"Naruto mentioned you were back in town."
"So what?"
"I'm allowed to want to talk to my old students, you know."
Sasuke huffs, but doesn't retort.
"Naruto also said you were talking about selling the whole compound off. Is that true?"
Sasuke nods once.
"Wanna talk about why?"
"It's not a big deal."
"Good. If it's not a big deal, then you won't mind indulging my curiosity, now won't you?"
Sasuke sighs, irritation written in his brow. Kakashi crosses his arms, sits on a gnarled tree stump, and patiently waits for an answer (he waits for a long time).
"There's just...I need...I just want to get rid of it, okay?" Sasuke struggles to find words to articulate his emotions.
He strides up the porch steps with all the confidence he can muster, and prays his voice stays steady as he opens the front door.
"I just need to see if some things are still here. That's all- then they can tear the whole thing down for all I care."
Kakashi trails after Sasuke, following him into the dreary interior of the house.
Dust lays thickly over everything, only broken up by the tiny footprints of insects and rodents. The floorboards creak dangerously under their feet, but Sasuke is unperturbed.
Not able to stand the silence, Kakashi speaks again.
"So, how much are you getting for all the land, exactly? I mean, I can't imagine it was easy finding someone willing to buy it, considering its history."
"..."
"I hope you didn't just settle for the first person willing to toss you a few Ryo." Kakashi's tone is quite serious.
"I don't care about the money!" Sasuke snarls, like the very notion offends him. "I just want this place gone."
He twists the front of his shirt in his hand, as if there's a great pain in his chest.
"I want to forget everything that happened here," he murmurs, defeat coloring his voice gray. "I want to wipe it all away. I need to wipe it all away."
"You know you can't do that, Sasuke." Kakashi's tone is incredulous, but with a note of sympathy.
Sasuke turns to stone, and once again refuses to speak.
Kakashi takes on a stern voice that reminds Sasuke too much of his father.
"Look- I don't care if you want to give the place away. It's yours, so you can do whatever the hell you want with it. But if you think bulldozing it is gonna somehow make you feel better about what happened, you're gonna be damn disappointed. I think you know that."
Sasuke hangs his head in misery. Kakashi puts a hand on his shoulder to get his attention.
"C'mon, stop sulking. Didn't you say you were looking for stuff? I'll come with you."
Those words spark Sasuke back into action. He shakes the dust off his mind and continues on.
Again, Kakashi follows him; the floor screaming in protest after a decade of rot and neglect. Amber light streams in through holes in the roof, illuminating the way forward.
The hallway Sasuke wanders to smells like damp mold and death- a leaky pipe in the ceiling drip drip drips water steadily, warping the wooden floor below it.
There's one bedroom at the beginning of the hallway. Toward the end, there are two doors sitting across from each other. One door is unadorned- blank and unassuming. The other bears a sign written in the unsteady, unpracticed, yet painstaking handwriting of a child.
Sasuke's Room
The rusty door hinges shriek as Sasuke pushes it open.
Sasuke's childhood bedroom stands much as it had been back then. The dust covers everything, and rats have eaten away the corners of the books on the floor, but aside from that, everything remains as it was when he'd left for school on his last happy morning.
Corroded shuriken and forgotten school supplies litter the floor; it's a bit of a puzzle finding a safe place to step.
Sasuke's eyes zero in on his bed, going wide with realization.
He reaches out for the small stuffed hawk sitting on the bed, as if it had patiently waited for him all this time (as if someone has set it there). He takes the toy tenderly, and, despite himself, smiles at it.
"I had this since before I could remember anything," he says softly. "It was my favorite toy."
He runs his fingers over the stuffed hawk's left wing- across a series of clumsily done, awkwardly clustered stitches.
His words come more easily now, warm and stained with nostalgia.
"My parents were out one night, when I accidentally tore its wing off- I don't remember how. I couldn't stop crying when it happened, no matter how hard Itachi tried to console me."
Kakashi pictures the scene in his mind's eye, and grins. He keeps his silence, wanting to hear Sasuke out to the end (and not wanting to offend him by laughing).
"So, he snuck Mother's sewing kit out of her room. He spent two whole hours trying to sew it up, even though he had no idea how. He kept jabbing his hand with the needle, having to pull out stitches and start all over..."
He hugs the small plush toy to his chest, something resembling a laugh bubbling out of his throat.
"When Mother and Father came home, there was blood all over- Itachi's hands were completely mangled. They tried so hard to be mad at him. You should've seen their faces."
Sasuke's hands are shaking quite badly now.
"He went through all that trouble for a stupid toy bird. Just because it was my toy bird."
A shaky breath escapes him, and he clutches the hawk tighter. Even though Kakashi can only see Sasuke's back, he can tell he's started to cry.
"...Itachi did a lot of stuff like that for me," he mumbles, voice muffled in the dusty felt.
"Because he loved you," Kakashi reminds him.
"...I didn't deserve it."
Kakashi places a hand on Sasuke's shoulder again, this time trying to console him.
"You shouldn't be so rough on yourself."
"Why the hell not? You know how badly I fucked up!"
"Oh yeah. You fucked up big time. Hell, I don't think I know anyone else who fucked up as badly as you fucked up."
Sasuke finally turns toward him, an incredulous expression on his handsome face.
"I also know that fucking up doesn't mean you don't deserve to be happy or have someone love you. So you shouldn't believe that." Kakashi finishes.
"You don't get it," Sasuke grumbles.
"Oh, don't I? You wanna bet on that?"
Sasuke doesn't answer. He slumps dejectedly on his old bed, a cloud of dust puffing up around him- still holding his beloved childhood toy.
"...It isn't fair," he mumbles, sounding utterly defeated.
"Sure isn't," Kakashi agrees.
Sasuke buries his face in the stuffed animal, once again muffling his voice.
"It didn't have to happen," he growls, sounding more angry than sad, now. "I didn't ask for any of it!"
"Funny enough," Kakashi says, annoyance in his tone, "life doesn't take into account whether you've asked for something before throwing it at you."
The sharpness of his voice gets Sasuke's attention. His head snaps up, regarding Kakashi with what might be surprise.
"I mean, it's not like I asked to walk in to find my dad's guts spilled all over the carpet. And I wasn't exactly fond of my friends dropping dead all because of me, either. Life never asked if I could handle anything, just like I never asked for anything. Shit gets thrown your way, and you can't stop it. You just have to get back up, wipe it off your face, and try to get on with it."
Sasuke's brow knits together, as he takes in what Kakashi has said.
"...sorry," he murmurs, almost too quietly to hear.
"The hell are you apologizing for?"
Sasuke pulls his knees close to himself, looking keenly childish. He's almost cute when he sulks like this.
Kakashi shakes his head.
"What else are you looking for?" He asks, wanting to maybe get him moving again.
This gentle prompting makes Sasuke rise from his bed, with stiff and awkward movements. He tucks away the ancient stuffed animal in the bag over his shoulder, and leaves his room with one last glance over his shoulder.
His next stop is to his parents' room, to gather a couple books, along with the few pieces of jewelry his mother owned (presumably for Sakura, though Kakashi doesn't ask).
Sasuke hesitates outside Itachi's bedroom door, chewing on his bottom lip until it bruises. But, in the end, he turns the handle, and steps inside.
Like Kakashi had expected, Itachi's room is put together with military precision. The bed is still made immaculately, clothes still hung perfectly in the closet, the papers and notebooks lined up so perfectly one would think a machine set them there. If not for the dust and the smell of mildew, one would think Itachi had just stepped out for the day.
Sasuke starts rifling through his brother's belongings, clearly looking for something specific. He opens up all the drawers, pulling things out with little regard for their order, becoming increasingly agitated as he evidently kept failing.
Kakashi kneels down and peers under the bed, discovering a plain black binder sitting lonely in a thick layer of dust. He pulls it out and dusts it off, opening it up curiously while Sasuke continues his search.
The binder turns out to be a rather large photo album, maybe a hundred pages long.
There's a picture of Itachi as a baby, held aloft by Fugaku, who's beaming with pride. There's one of baby Sasuke, too, walking tentatively across the floor, gripping Itachi's hands for dear life as his brother cheered him on.
Itachi, Izumi, and Shisui at the spring festival. Shisui is grinning wide enough to burst, arms wrapped around the other two and pulling them close. Izumi is hanging off Itachi's arms, captured mid-giggle by the camera. Itachi's smile is wobbly and uncertain, his face red from embarrassment, but happy all the same. The photo has a slightly wobbly, kind of blurry quality to it (Sasuke must have taken it).
Toward the back, there's a picture of Sasuke on his eighth birthday, tearing into the wrapping paper of some gift or another, with Itachi beaming at him from the background, next to a picture of Sasuke hanging off Itachi's arm, while the older boy shows off his brand new ANBU tattoo.
"Hey, are you looking for this?" Kakashi asks, to get Sasuke's attention.
The photo album is out of Kakashi's hands as soon as the words are out of his mouth.
Sasuke's dark eyes are full of tears he stubbornly refuses to let fall. He handles the album as if it was a precious porcelain artifact.
"That's a yes, then." Kakashi chuckles.
Sasuke is too busy flipping through the pages of the photo album to respond. He finally allows himself to cry openly, no longer caring if his teacher saw. Grief at last overwhelming him, he sinks to his knees, as if all his strength has abandoned him.
Kakashi kneels down and, even though he knows Sasuke would normally protest, gathers Sasuke up into a hug.
Because this time, Sasuke doesn't fight it off. This time, Sasuke doesn't shrink away from the comfort.
Because this time, Sasuke finally realizes that he needs it. Realizes that it's not shameful to cry.
(Kakashi wonders how many years it's been since Sasuke has allowed himself to be hugged.)
After an eternity, Sasuke's crying dies away to shaky, hiccuping sobs. He pushes Kakashi away from him, and tries to dry his face on his sleeve.
He tucks the photo album away with the rest of his treasures, and makes his way back onto his feet.
"...That's everything, I think," he murmurs. Kakashi trails out after him, emerging back out to the lingering warmth of dusk.
The sky is fading from vermillion to indigo, the first stars tentatively popping up in the firmament.
"So. That's it then?" Kakashi asks.
Sasuke lays a hand on the doorframe, one last time.
"...Yeah. That's it."
"Let's get out of here, then. I want a drink."
Kakashi nudges Sasuke out of the doorway.
"C'mon, kid- I'll buy you a beer."
When they reach the outside of the old Uchiha compound, Sasuke takes one last look over his shoulder, his expression unreadable.
"You gonna be okay?"
Sasuke sighs, shakes his head, and looks away.
"Yeah," he says, at last. "I'll be fine."