And here's the one-shot I promised in the latest chapter of One Building At A Time. who wants to hear the story of why it was written? No one? Too bad, I'm typing it out anyway.
So last week while I was driving home from my cousin's house while listening to the radio, the song when You're Gone by Avril Lavigne came on. While normally I'm not too fond of her music, I do like that one particular song. Anyhow, while I was driving and listening to this song while going down the highway, I was struck by a thought. What if I could find a way to make the song apply to SasuNaru? Once I finally managed to get home, that is exactly what I did. I listened to the song on youtube while writing it out, and then also while typing it up for you guys. While reading the story, I recommend you do the same for atmosphere. And now for warnings and story notes:
This fic was partially inspired by the song When You're Gone by Avril Lavigne
Most of the stuff I write is fluffy cutesy happily ever after ending stuff, even if I haven't uploaded it here yet. if that is the kind of ending you want, you are reading the wrong fic. Want something by me with a happy ending? Then please read A Strange and Unnecessary Power or Sun Shower. You have been warned.
Please note that if you review and I dont reply, it's because for some reason, the site won't let me see my reviews here. I can see them in the alert e-mails, however. So until this little bug gets fixed (I have already contacted the support about it) I will not be able to reply to reviews at all. It does not mean that I do not love and appreciate what you might have to say.
Disclaimer: Naruto does not own Avril Lavigne, and she does not own Naruto. Oh, I also don't own either of them.
Naruto pounded on the sleep button on his alarm clock once again as the beeping sound filled his bedroom. It was another morning he refused to believe had come. He snuggled deeper into his pillow and covered his head with the comforter. Once the last push of the sleep button had worn off, Naruto turned off from his side and onto his back, still not opening his eyes. Stupid God-Damned alarm clock!
Last year, he wouldn't have minded waking up so early in the morning. Sasuke was always awake at this time anyhow, and he'd have breakfast on the table fresh and piping hot once Naruto managed to get his ass in gear and ready to go.
He yawned; eyes still closed and wondered how Sakura was doing. He did promise her he'd visit today, after all.
. . .
Sakura was greeted this fine morning with the soft yellow light creeping in through the chiffon curtains of her bedroom and felt across the double bed for her still sleeping husband.
Sakura's fingers brushed against his skin and she was surprised to hear him turn over to face her and whisper a groggy "Good Morning."
The moment of happy silence was broken by the sound of Sakura's rambunctious three year old son running into the room and she felt the thud of him crashing into the bed.
"MAMA!" the little boy yelled as he began jumping up and down on the clear space of the bed and landing every other jump on the jumble of Sakura's and her husband's legs.
"Mama, wake up! It is morning and you said Uncle Naruto was coming over for a visit!"
Sakura laughed and hoisted her body up and hugged her little boy tightly.
"Yes!" she growled. "Naruto is going to come over to say hello to me and Daddy and you and your baby brother! So get dressed, okay?"
The little boy squirmed out of her grasp and jumped back onto the floor and turned to face his parents defiantly.
"What if I don't wanna?" he challenged.
Sakura smirked and crawled out of bed and tackle hugged her son once more.
"If you won't do it, then I'll call Uncle Naruto and tell him not to come over and the tickle monster will visit instead!"
"Nooooo!" the little boy ran back to his room. Sakura heard his door slam and the sound of his dresser drawers being opened and clothes being flung onto the floor she'd spent all of yesterday cleaning.
"He seems excited," Sakura stood up and smiled at her husband Sai, as he sat up and rubbed the back of his neck sleepily.
"Yes," Sakura said. "It isn't every day that Naruto feels up to making a visit."
. . .
Naruto felt across the bed and felt only the smoothness of the gray sheets he and Sasuke had picked out together. That side of the bed was tightly tucked in and cold. It was always cold, and Naruto refused to use the whole bed for himself for the past year. Naruto replaced the covers back on his side and crawled over to get out of bed.
He staggered over to the walk in closet and brushed his hand lightly across the left hangers and picked out his clothes for the day. He rummaged through the left side shelves for his orange turtleneck and pulled it over his torso and let the hem go down past the waist of his orange pants.
After perusing the shoe rack on the back wall of his closet and buckling up his Zori sandals, he glanced sadly at the right side of the closet. Sasuke's shirts and robes still hung there untouched after all this time. Sasuke said that since Naruto had taken the right side of the bed, it was only fair that he take the right side of the closet. Naruto had chosen not to argue and instead took the closet's left side for his own clothes. Naruto ran his index finger, middle finger and thumb down the soft fabric of one of Sasuke's robe's sleeves before gently taking it off the hanger and pressing it to his face and inhaling deeply.
No matter how long it had been, Sasuke's clothes still smelled like him; a mix of musk and some citrusy spicy smell that made Naruto go weak at the knees. Naruto still had a hard time believing that the scent was natural, but Naruto had never once seen Sasuke use any sort of cologne, so he never questioned it. Naruto put the robe back where it belonged and shook his head sadly. He wanted to bottle that scent now, so whenever he felt he needed to feel like Sasuke was still there with him, he could just spritz some of the smell out and be comforted for a while. Naruto wasn't stupid enough to actually believe that cologne could be made just by giving Sasuke's old shirts to a developer, and instead of being temporarily comforted by smell, he was grilled weekly by his shrink.
. . .
Naruto stood in the doorway of Sasuke's library and ran a finger across the bookshelf holding Sasuke's prized book collection. In the past when Naruto walked into the room, he'd be greeted by the sight of Sasuke lounging casually on the leather sofa and adjusting his black framed reading glasses with a book two inches from his nose.
"Naruto," Sasuke said, a small smile gracing his lips. "Could you put this back for me and get me that book on forensics? The thicker one this time."
Naruto grinned at him and swatted Sasuke's head playfully with the book.
"Still hoping to become the head of the Konoha Police Force?"
Sasuke smiled and nodded.
"It's been my dream since I was a child, Naru-chan."
"You'll get there," he said supportively. "You already fight well enough. Remember what Madara said to us all those years ago about how we were destined to battle?"
"Unfortunately," Sasuke said flatly.
"He may have been a bad man, but he was right. We were destined for this. Because I-"
Sasuke smirked and glanced at the large framed mirror over the mantle with the words engraved on it that meant so much to both of them.
"I was born for you, and you were born for me." He finished.
Naruto sat down next to Sasuke on the sofa, and let Sasuke give him the softest of kisses before getting up and replacing the book on the shelf.
"Get going to work," he told Naruto before walking out of the room. "And don't swat me with my own books!"
Naruto stared sadly at the rows and rows of leather-bound books of various colors collecting dust on the bookcase. Used to be he never touched them. He had no patience for those books with walls of tiny text and hundreds of pages, and their covers engraved in gold script with title and authors names.
Ever since that day, Naruto had obsessively read every single word in every single tome, because these were Sasuke's books, and these were the words Sasuke had read. He memorized several of them, in fact.
Naruto walked out of the room without touching a single page. Not today. He could not bear to look at this room and remember everything today.
. . .
Naruto knocked on the door of Sakura and Sai's house and when the door opened he was immediately engulfed into a bear hug at the knees by a small dark haired boy with his mother's green eyes.
"Hey, Hiroki!" He hugged the boy back and nuzzled his head. "How ya been?"
"I've been super good, Uncle Naruto!" The boy said excitedly. "Mama put gold stickers on my good behavior chart! Wanna see?"
Naruto let Hiroki pull him quickly into the kitchen by his pants leg and was directed to a calendar with gold star stickers on it hanging on the fridge by the power of a slug shaped magnet.
"Good job, Hiroki," Naruto told the boy. "Where's your mom?"
Sakura came into the kitchen as if on cue. She smiled at her friend and rocked the little bundle in her arms.
"Hello, Naruto."
Naruto walked over to Sakura and took a peek at the baby boy in the bundle of clean white blankets.
"How have you and Sai been doing lately?"
Sakura motioned with her head for Naruto to follow her into the living room and she sat down on the sofa and groaned at being able to take a load off her feet.
"To answer your question," she said, "Sai and I are great. I'm still a little sore from the birth, but it was worth it to get my little baby."
Naruto smiled and made a funny face at the pink-haired tiny boy nestled in Sakura's arms.
"I mean, Sai and I were trying for a girl this time, but considering the circumstances, I'm glad I had another boy. Such a precious namesake…"
Naruto took the little baby from Sakura's arms and looked at the name stitched onto his infant onesie. The blue embroidery said Sasuke in curly cue letters on the front.
"You know," Naruto said, blinking back tears. "If Sasuke were here, he'd find it insulting you gave his name to a pink-haired baby."
Sakura took her boy back from Naruto and undid her shirt to feed him.
"If Sasuke were here, I wouldn't have named my second son after him," she said quietly.
"Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Shoot."
Naruto glanced at Sai trying to feed his firstborn some breakfast in the dining room.
"Why'd you marry Sai?"
Sakura sighed sympathetically and rested baby Sasuke on her lap.
"I know that Sai has…troubles…expressing himself, but he really does care about me and the kids."
"So…"
"So it was my choice. We get along pretty great, and you'd see that if you came out of your place a little more."
"I notice plenty," Naruto said grumpily.
"Really?" Sakura said sharply. "Did you notice that Lee and Ten-Ten finally had a kid after months of infertility treatments? Did you notice that Neji and Hinata got married? Did you notice that since you've been MIA this past year Kiba is now on the fast track to become the next Hokage? And Shikamaru eventually got around to moving to Suna for Temari-"
"ENOUGH!" Naruto yelled and leaped to his feet.
Naruto turned around and looked at Sai, who sat motionless with his son's bowl and spoon poised in his hands.
"Uncle Naruto?" Hiroki asked quietly.
Naruto smiled once more and walked over to Hiroki and mussed his hair.
"I'm sorry I yelled Hiroki," Naruto apologized. "I guess I'm still a little tired. I'll see you soon, okay buddy?"
Hiroki grinned.
"Yeah, soon!"
Naruto walked out the door.
"Goodbye, Sakura. Goodbye, Sai. I'll see you both soon as well."
. . .
Naruto tapped his fingers on his leg as he sat on the chair opposite his therapist.
"Yelling at your best friend when she's still a little hormonal from giving birth is definitely not progress, Naruto." She told him.
"I know," he said dejectedly.
"I was also not happy to hear that the reason she yelled at you was because you still have trouble combating the isolation symptom of your depression," she said. "You've been taking the medication I prescribed for you, yes?"
Naruto sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
"Yes, doctor," he droned. "I have been taking my meds."
"I think today instead of talking strictly about your depression, we should talk more about the cause."
"Why?" Naruto's head shot up in surprise.
"Judging from your behavior, I still think you haven't moved on. It isn't healthy to dwell, Naruto."
"You want to imagine how I feel?" Naruto sobbed. "Sasuke's DEAD! And it's my entire fault!"
The therapist tossed a box of tissue closer to him and folded her hands back together on her lap.
"Sasuke risked drowning in that water jutsu last year to protect you," she said. "It was his choice, not yours. Sasuke was a grown man and could make his own decisions."
"I wish he'd made a different one."
"The dead cannot change the consequences of the choices they made," She said. "But the living can make choices to become better people for the sacrifices their loved ones made."
"I was born for him," Naruto mumbled absentmindedly. "And he was born for me. If he'd dead, then shouldn't I have died for him, too?"
Naruto," his therapist said seriously. "If you revert to suicidal behavior again, I'm going to have to put you under surveillance watch in the psyche ward again."
"Don't worry," Naruto reassured her. "I'm not going to kill myself. I promised Hiroki I'd show him how to throw shuriken."
"There," the therapist said cheerfully. "That's a nice positive activity to help you move on." She watched as Naruto smiled but shook his head.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"It's nothing," he chuckled sadly. "It's just that I always thought I'd be teaching Hiroki how to do stuff with Sasuke by my side."
Naruto ignored his therapist's pleas to stay in the room, but Naruto had enough. He ended the session early.
. . .
It was dark, and no one was supposed to be out in the cemetery after hours.
Naruto walked on the gravel path leading to the newer graves in the back of the graveyard. He crunched the empty soda can with his hand and tossed into the garbage can next to the stone bench under one of the weeping willows. Naruto grinned at how good he was behaving for his therapist. No more drinking himself into a stupor. Naruto was a good boy who was no longer an alcoholic at risk of dying from alcohol poisoning.
Naruto stopped suddenly when he saw the moonlight reflecting off the smooth polished surface of a gravestone he knew all too well.
Sasuke Uchiha
"I was born for you, and you were born for me"
A Konoha ninja who will be missed by all
Naruto bent over and sat down on the grass in front of the gravestone.
"Hey Sasuke," he said quietly. "I've been being so good. You'd be really proud of me."
"I quit drinking and I don't cut myself anymore," he whispered into the granite. "I take my meds like I'm supposed to. My therapist told me that you'd be mad at me if you saw what I was doing to myself."
"I wonder," he leaned in closer to the stone. "Can you hear me in wherever it is that you are?"
"I hope you're in a good place," he mumbled. "Or is there even a place where we go after we die?"
Naruto's lip quivered and he rested his forehead against the headstone. His fingers rubbed against the sharp edge of a carving on the stone and thin lines of blood pooled into the crevices of the words and designs carved onto its surface.
"Why?" Naruto began crying.
"You-" he sobbed harder.
"How could you leave me like this?"
His hand moved up to his face as he tried to stop crying. The blood from the small cuts on his fingers mixed with his tears and stung his eyes even harder.
"You fucking bastard!" he screamed into the headstone and he sunk lower and lower to the ground covered by the night time shadow of the gravestone and shook with wrenching sobs while his blood and tears mixed in with the dirt.
I miss you.