everything is right with the world
-k.
Everything fades with time. Clothing, old photos, even old friends. Nothing ever stays the same. Sasuke's memories are fading too. He can't remember his mother's face anymore, not in any way that counts. His memories are starting to overlap with the few pictures he has of her. He's forgetting how it felt to be hugged by her, what her food tasted like, how she spoke. Everything that matters is slowly wasting away, replaced by weakened feelings, vague impressions. It's odd, that the things that he wants to hold on to most, are slowly slipping away, and the things that he cares so little about remain.
He can name every person who's given him something, from the stuffed lion sitting on the top shelf of his closet, to the green shirt that's waiting to be washed, piled with the rest of his laundry. It's not that all these things hold some kind of meaning for him. They don't. Names he remembers, but the faces he can't recall, or the reasons why.
He knows one thing. This is something he can't stop. So he lets it happen, lets everything be taken away from him, because it's worth it when they come back to him, sneak up on him, more vividly than they could when he resists, and tries to hold on to something that can't be captured.
Names ground him. He likes knowing that there were people in the past who he cared about, who cared about him. So though he can't remember what they were like, he has that much. And as the number of gifts he receives grows smaller each year, he can't bring himself to care too much. That's the way things are, even when your entire family isn't dead.
Everyone gets older, birthdays and holidays are no longer big occasions, and eventually, it's down from a child's dream of gifts, to three or four things that really, actually matter.
But Naruto is the exception.
Names are piling up in Naruto's memories, just like the gifts scattered around his room. There's a young fox sitting beside Sasuke's old lion, a bright orange shirt to match his faded green one. Sasuke likes it.
What he likes best, though, are the pictures lying everywhere in the house, on the fridge, on the wall; the film in their cannisters, the film that hasn't been used.
Maybe old memories fade to make room for new ones.
Sasuke wouldn't have it any other way.
everything's been going well lately, so i wrote some happy, sappy sasuxnaru. i hope you enjoyed it!