A/N

Greetings,

This chapter is dedicated to my first reviewer ichigorukia4 life. Anyways this chapter is a Sasuke centric one just to let you guys get to know a little more about him. Just a note that whenever the paragraph formatting is in the centre it means the person is thinking. It might be a little confusing to start with but hopefully you'll become used to it after a while. Enjoy


Chapter 1

The skies are blue

The grass is green

Yet.

All the colours fade to black

'…and the poor bugger just lost his case and went psycho, absolutely nuts, I tell you.'

'Yeah, yeah. I'll be the one to go nuts if you drink anymore.'

A rattle of laughter around the bar.

Sasuke clinks another coin down on the bar.

'The same?'

'Aa.'

As he waits for his drink, he casts a glance around the bar. It is a comfortable enough place with a crackling fire down one end and wooden tables scattered around the scuffed timber floors. The evening regulars recline on these chairs in various states of inebriation regaling others with stories or gazing off into the distance, thinking of better places, better times. There is a constant hum of conversation with the occasional bout of laughter and scraping of chairs. Slightly kitschy pictures, that no-one seems to ever look at hang on the wall.

Your regular bar. Nothing special. Nothing different. Safe even.

The bartender sets a frothing mug of beer in front of him. The amber liquid tips precariously before settling. He nods his thanks and takes a sip.

Ahh the elixir of life. My own sweet ambrosia. Why dost thou tempt me so?

'Had a good night?'

It is the first thing that anyone has said to him all night. It makes him feel obliged to expand from his standard answer.

'Yeah.'

'Fishing been any good?'

How long had it taken to get around that he had gotten a boat? Did everyone know?

'Fair enough.'

The barman nods and gives the top a perfunctory swipe with his cloth before moving down to the other end where more curious souls sat, always up for a conversation. At least they co-operated enough to answer in sentences although he supposed that did depend on if they were sober enough to string a sentence together.

It's getting late. Should head back now eh? Maybe. Maybe not. After one more drink. Maybe.

That was what he was here for. A change of scenery to continue the drinking. It seemed lately that was all he seemed to do. Drink. Or fish. Then drink some more.

Sasuke sighs.

There really hadn't been much point to coming.

And the mug was nearly empty too.

Such a pretty girl

Aboard such a pretty ship

Sails into harbour one day

And buys a drink

To forget the storms her dreams bring

When the sky fades to black

The seas turn unwieldy, the drink empties

And she dares not turn back

I wonder if anyone would notice if I started to sing.

I raise my glass to those poor souls who have taken up the noble art of singing and can trill and warble as well as

any bird that graces our skies and shits on our heads. Whilst I, I shall stick to thinking up nonsense lyrics and strumming my guitar.

Guffaws.

He looks around and his gaze alights on a circle around one of the larger tables on the floor.

It seems someone is telling a story. Or rather a drunken anecdote. Supplemented with an extra serve of exaggeration and hand gestures.

Hey now don't be too hasty. Some say truth lies in exaggeration after all.

…Oh yea, who?

Sasuke blinks. Perhaps it was time to head home. The permanent commentary in his head was standard routine but when he started having a conversation with himself it was a sign the night was going to be a bitch in the morning if he did not stop. soon.

A slender will-o-wisp of a woman is the obvious centre of attention as she entertains the others with tales from work. She is sitting away from him so he cannot see her face but through the dim light of the bar he can make out that she has pink pink? hair tied in a severe bun which several drinks have seemed to have loosened up considerably.

'…And the fucking case just stripped and walked in as if he owned the place and would you believe he still expects VIP care?'

I'd believe the poor lady is short of a few words. Or thoughts. Or maybe just intellectual energy in general. Although it might be the pink hair.

The expletive is used to colour nearly every sentence. A sad expression of counterbalance to the story that seems to be going nowhere at all.

'Then fucking hell Kai chooses to walk in at just that moment and I bloody well nearly had a fucking heart attack.'

Hey, hey take it easy woman. Why do you disgrace the language so? You hate English? If you choose to speak

then do so with some respect woman. Or preferably don't speak at all. Save our ears the contamination. Ah hell the word

has its place but in every sentence?

He shakes his head. No use thinking about it. The woman would not care what a stranger would have to say and a stranger with an opinion, in particular. He drains his glass, slips of the stool and heads to the door. The group have turned to watch him leave. The woman blinks her dazed green green? eyes at him and smiles. He doesn't smile back.

'Goodnight,' calls the bartender.

'Goodnight.'


The tower stands, a massive structure that rises up to the skies, on the otherwise flat landscape. It seems anomalous compared to the rest of the scenery. A man-made error.

'Humankind strikes again,' he thinks somewhat bitterly.

For it is a human thing built from wood and stone and mortar whilst the land around it is wild and free and nature. It stood on the lip of the land that extended around the bend in the coastline. Far away from the ocean to ensure level ground and firm foundation but close enough for the waves to accompany his stringed lullabies to lull him to sleep. For sleep was scarce these days. Elusive as the tooth fairy.


Sasuke had been fascinated by tooth fairies ever since he had lost his first tooth at age 4, early for his age but he remembered being so proud as he ran to tell first his brother then his mother. His brother had merely laughed before ruffling his hair and returning to studying his scrolls. His mother on the other hand had exclaimed with surprise and fussed over him. He had pushed her off crossly and demanded that she tell him the story of the tooth fairy now that he ready for it. Itachi had always been so secretive about the modus operandi of when you lost a tooth and Sasuke had always been a little afraid to ask. But he was a big boy now. He was ready.

And so he crouched by his mother's feet as she sat on her favourite cedar rocking chair his father had made for her when she was pregnant with her firstborn, back when the clan wasn't always watching with their hateful eyes and probing fingers. Ready to pounce on the first sign of weakness that either of them displayed.

She had watched helplessly as her first son grew up with the warped ideals and poison fed to him from the cradle by those who dared called themselves family. She had vowed that it would not happen again with her second child and when she first gazed into his eyes, she had promised that she would protect him. So far she had been successful, the clan had dismissed him as a weakling that hid in the shadow of his mother's skirts and she was content to let it remain that way. He would grow up in his own time, in his own way. She was thankful that her husband and her firstborn had co-operated with her in that respect. Both were sparse with their displays of affection but she knew they loved him and that was enough for her.

So she told her son the story of the tooth fairy. And watched as he ran off with glee overcome with the prospect of trading a measly tooth for a whole shining dollar.

He had ran to his room where he sat on his bed contemplating his tooth. It had been loose for nearly two weeks now and after probing it with his tongue one too many times it had finally come free of its tenuous attachment to his gums. He studied his tooth. It was a pearly white sturdy tooth. Nothing wrong with it. And he had had it with him for four years now and he was only going to get a dollar with it. No. No, that was not fair. Not fair at all. He deserved at least five dollars for brushing twice a day for all these years not to mention all those visits to the dentist. He shuddered. No, he would have to find a way to get more than a mere dollar.

His Uchiha brain thinking furiously he had deduced that he couldn't have been the only one to have lost a tooth today. Itachi had told him the world was bigger than a billion tomatoes. So somewhere out there someone else must have experienced the same elation he had at the thought of the tooth fairy. And the tooth fairy would have to be carrying more than one dollar if she was going to visit all the children who were expecting her. That's it! If I catch the fairy then I'll be able to take the amount I really deserve.

He said a silent apology to the other children as he stole into his father's workshop that had been gathering dust over the years and collected the materials his four year old self had thought necessary.

Though he thinks now that he may have chosen the materials based on their varying degrees of shininess rather than their usefulness.

That year he woke up eagerly anticipating the easy fortune he was going to make. However he was crestfallen when instead of little fairy screaming her lungs out at him a small coin lay on his dresser table. The trap looked untouched. He cheered up later over his favourite peanut butter cookies his mother made for him but over the years though his contraptions improved considerably the tooth fairy proved to be ever elusive.

Every year he would promise himself to stay awake and wait for the right moment to pounce. And every year he would fall asleep and be disappointed the next morning to find the same dollar coin lying on the dresser table.

Until he turned eight.

That year the tooth fairy stopped coming.

He supposes it was the rather unhealthy obsession with the tooth fairy that led to him search for further appealing yet equally elusive creatures amongst the pages of fairytales. His mother had leapt at the chance to encourage her son in his innocent pursuits of the fey and fairyfolk and had immediately gone to the bookshop and bought as many fairytales as she could find. His father had tolerated this by ignoring the brightly coloured books that littered the nursery floor and his brother and merely raised an eyebrow and muttered, 'maybe another time,' as Sasuke hopefully held a book in his hands.

Anyway he had grown out of it. Shed his love for fairytales as easily as he shed his innocence.

Until he had bought this land.

It was a wild, deserted piece of land.

And as he wandered the sands, memories long buried resurfaced, bringing with them whispers of palaces and princesses, fairy rings and garden gnomes, knights and their ladies. Then as he was crouching to examine a particularly pink cowrie shell, it came to him.

A tower.

He would build a tower.

Towers were normally ominous places in fairytales. Full of darkness and shadows. It was where the princess was locked up or where the evil character dwelled. Yet the thought of a tower for a home charmed Sasuke and he would not be dissuaded by unwilling and sceptical architects. He had designed the whole structure himself and convinced the builders to take the project by offering an unholy amount by means of pay.

But Sasuke did not care.

He had toiled alongside the bemused workers, sweat pouring down his forehead, throat parched, fingers blistered. Tempers frayed and the paid help seemed to change daily but by late February the tower stood, tall and defiant.

It was his hermitage, his place of glimmering retreat. No people invited. For who could understand the darkness that lurked in his soul, the secrets that swirled in the marrow of his bones? No. He was content alone and that was the way it would remain, shaping his future with his all-knowing hands with his guitar and the bottle for company.

But the pinnacle became an abyss and his content life ended. And at last there was a prison.

I am trapped in this place of stone and rock with only my calloused fingers to tear it down.

And I cannot do it.


Next up is a Takeshi centric chapter.