A/N: Originally housed at LJ, written usually at obscene hours of night and interspersed between rambling and spam of other sorts. 8D Some chapters will consist of drabbles all in one 'storyline'; others will just be vaguely connected by theme and the like. Please enjoy and concrit!
to be
1. you are tomorrow if i had one
Naruto is a promise Sasuke refuses to make himself.
During the day he looks at the sky only through the impartial crimson tint of Sharingan, looks at the sun only in the crimson fade of evening. He trains at night when he can and passes out in the woods. Any place frequented by Sound is a lush desert, nothing living but wildlife to notice him: and anyway, animals fear him. (Fear his blood.)
Buried in the heady scent of forest he dreams one night of gold and lapis (some timeless treasure of the sands) and a laugh and a smile and a hand against the haze of dreamlight. When he wakes it is the first time he has purely hated Itachi.
2. you are what freezes my dreams
Naruto hates the cold.
Once when he was young the landlord turned off his heat in the winter and he woke with a chill that hollowed his bones and a terrific headache. (The fire he built nearly burned down the apartment and he wound up relocating at the firm request of a furious Sandaime.) And besides, Kyuubi's chakra is a wicked-hot furnace inside him, and he is accustomed to the warmth.
Since Sasuke left Naruto's dreams are scalding red, but in the morning his joints ache with a burning freeze festering slowly into his chest, and when it fades his throat is tight with want.
3. you are my momentary breath
Itachi revels in the scarlet of his brother's eyes.
Sharingan is a promise of a crueler world accidentally left in the bodies of humans, Itachi thinks, and the Uchiha mon is used to disguise the truth in a flutter of power. Sometimes he sees his bijuu, Jinchuuriki more human than most humans, and wonders if Sasuke wishes as fiercely as Itachi to stop time and cling to a moment of rapture. (Life.)
Wonders if Sasuke regrets Konoha: but they are blood, and because of it they both see that whether or not the Uchiha are avenged, Sasuke has no time to apologize.
4. you are what drives me spare or wild
If Sakura threw a kunai, she could cut the tension between Naruto and Sasuke-kun as if it were a Gordian knot of blinding red thread. She remembers the way they used to touch and sees the way they eye each other now and wonders if she really would if she could.