Sasuke and his family used to go on camping trips when he was younger and they alive. Sasuke hadn't liked nature since he was seven. He'd forgotten, by now, what it was like to love the woods and rivers. To look forward to the feel of grass between his toes as opposed to refusing to go outside without at least a pair of socks. Sasuke had forgotten when he started admiring the scenery he saw in paintings, macabre and realism alike, as opposed to the trees outside his window. Only when he thought about it could he remember, that clear line that separated his two minds.
When he was five they'd been in the camper, heading down from the forest. Itachi was fast asleep, a large pair of headphones hanging askew over his ears. Sasuke was looking outside, brushing the soft interior of the back of the driver's seat with the tips of his toes. Missing the grass. Missing the moss, and the water, the scratchy feeling of the inside of the sleeping bag, the--
Bang
What child, at some point, didn't learn about death?
Which of us shoots the other first?
His father instructed them all to wait in the car before he pushed open the door and stepped outside. The ten 'o clock sky was dark, dotted with stars and lightened to a light gray where the darkness surrounded the thin sliver of moon that hovered above them all. Sasuke swung his feet back and forth, the back of his heels hitting his seat and his toes hitting his mother's. She told him to stop, paused, and then stepped outside to join his father.
Itachi, who had just woken up, slipped the headphones back over his ears when Sasuke began to question him. How would I know? he asked, then, Stop bugging me. He was tired. Always cranky when he was tired, Sasuke remembered. He used to think Itachi had constant nightmares to put him in such a bad mood when he awoke. Maybe he was right.
A few minutes later, his mother climbed into the front of the seat with a grim expression on her face. Through the darkness Sasuke could see her jaw tense like a wire trap.
His father didn't rejoin them. Instead, he popped the trunk and began to rummage for something. He found it after a long moment or so and slammed the trunk shut once more. Interest thoroughly piqued, noting his mother's closed eyes and Itachi's determinedly shut ones, Sasuke leaned over to pear out the window.
Outside, strewn across the gravel in front of their car, illuminated by the headlights, was a young doe, her chest split wide like lips coated thickly in lipstick, drooling onto the ground like wine with chunks sliding out, thick slugs in the artificial light.
Sasuke couldn't look at it look. The eyes shown in the night, darting. Legs were kicking, and he worried the deer would break them.
bang
The legs twitched, slumped. The noise caused Itachi to slide his headphones from his ears and lean over to Sasuke's side of the car to get a better look. His mother sniffed, hand reaching up to cover her eyes around five seconds too late….
And now, many years later, Sasuke watched Naruto run back from the car, arms laden with grocery bags, trying to avoid getting too wet from the rain.
"Would it hurt you to help?" Naruto asked moodily. Sasuke sniffed at him. In his head, he was picturing Naruto with a bleeding chest, but with wonderful, gorgeous broken legs. Like broken wings on a bird.
don't leave me
While he helped unload the brushes and paint tins, letting Naruto ramble on about how dull the colors were, how they should have gotten bright colors for the kitchen, at least, you stubborn bastard, Sasuke wondered which one of them deserved the mercy shot more.