A/N: Prologue for part II. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!
Chapter eight: Mom and Me
Title: I want you to cry
By: Yuhikoi & Nixx
Pull it, for mommy.
Mommy needs this, don't you love mommy?
'Yes…'
D-d-do this for me, do this f-f-or me please.
'Will this make you happy again?'
Oh baby boy, it'll make me the happiest woman in the world. You want mama happy, don't you?
'but…I'll miss you.'
And I you but sometimes, things are awful baby, so awful and heavy—unbearable. It can be hard to bear. My heart is dying baby, my heart is bleeding and I—I'm suffering. Mama needs your help, to ease the pain. You're so brave, so strong—everything I could have ever asked for in a son. I just need your strength, I just need your help.
'Can't we take you to the doctors, they can help if there's something wrong inside your heart. Please Kaa-sa-'
There's nothing they can do for me baby. Look at me, I need this, I need you to be my little soldier. Ok? No, what's that you told your father you wanted to be a-a
'Ninja…'
'Ninja's are brave, they mean business baby. They have missions. Think of this as your mission, ok? I know it's heavy and it'll be loud but we're going to squeeze this right here. We're going to squeeze it really, really tight and you're going to let me go…let papa go. We'll see each other again.
'When? Kaa-san you're scaring me.'
Oh baby, don't cry this isn't goodbye. I promise, look at me, hey—I swear things are going to be fine. You listening to me? I just need—I need you to do this with me. Save me. Ok?
'I don't want you to go, I don't want you to go…I dont want it hurt you.'
It's only temporary baby, trust me, ok. Mommy just feels very sick and this is the only way, the only way to make her better. This isn't goodbye. Papa and I are just so tired. So, sleepy. We want to rest. You don't understand but someday you will. I don't have the strength, alone, to do this, I'm not as brave as you. I need you to be stronger, I need you to squeeze with me. On the count of three.
He sometimes sees it, as plain as day. It's burned into his retina. A nightmare he's woken from often, a routine he's grown to anticipate dreadfully.
He's in a heap of cold sweat and wheezing. Choking and crying. He's puking in the bathroom sink and scrubbing the pigment of his skin from his fingers. Clawing at his flesh with blunt nails and foamy antibacterial soap, until blood dyes the tap and his wounds are stinging and festering.
It's like a trans, which makes his eyes hot and blistering. He bites his cheek so hard blood seethes through the spaces between his teeth, dribbles of bloody saliva trickle down his bottom lip and dingles from his chin.
Get a grip, get a fuckin grip…
His nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath, which does nothing to lighten the tightness of his chest. Tears trek angrily down his cheek and an animistic noise erupts deeply from his throat.
He can feel something boiling under his skin, energy hyphening and making him restless. Angry. His cheeks puff and he can feel the veins in his temples palpitating irritably. The next thing he knows, he's rearing his fist back and thrusting it through the medicine cabinet with all his might and fury. The sound of glass shattering is sharp. Shards of jagged teeth dig into his knuckles, shredding his fingers like paper.
He switches fists, pummeling the mirror tirelessly, hoping to cast out this feeling that won't let him sleep. The more he swings the heavier it gets, driving him to enthusiastically focus all his strength into tearing the fucking mirror apart. Even though it fucking hurts, even though he'll live to regret his actions in the morning.
Right now, feels like forever and he's sick as fuck of living in this particular moment.
If he must beat the shit out of a fucking mirror to sort himself out, so be it.
Help mommy…
Although he is wide awake, the dream still seems to flicker through his conscious mind, fragments of memory bursting through his brain like multiple aneurysms:
Red speckles across his face, his shaking hands and his feet.
Any way that it can reach him it does, and he is swept under the undertow of his mother or whatever remained of her.
It's warm, dark and spreading across the floor like a tyrant tide out to drown him, to suffocate him.
His ears are ringing, screaming, screaming louder than he is. He can't shout over it, the noise is infinite, like a nuclear blast. It's condemning and he knows it, although he desperately tries to deny it.
In the pit of his stomach, he can feel that she's gone and she's lied to him.
The ground somehow elevates up to his knees and an ocean of deep red engulfs him.
It seeps right through him; flesh and bone. It eats away at his flesh like sulfuric gas.
It only takes a speck and he's shuffling away and yelling and yelling. His head swiveling, his stomach lurching and he's puking all over himself and choking. His heart beating like a hammer in his tiny chest as he stares into the cold dead eyes, and they stare right back at him. Rivulets of blood streaming down her crown and staining the whites of her eyes.
He calls to her, she doesn't answer.
He keeps calling, and calling and calling but nobody answers except the voice in his head.
You killed her, you killed her.
Naruto doesn't go back to sleep. He grabs his jacket, his phone and car keys and calls Sasuke.
The bastard that never sleeps.
Sasuke picks up on the fifth ring, inhaling deeply before stonily asking, "What the fuck do you want?"
"You."
Sasuke goes radio silent for a moment and then he starts laughing, "What's the fucking occasion, Uzumaki? Don't fuck with me dobe."
"You're right, I'm not a fuckin' faggot like you but I wanna get my hands on some blow and I hear you're the plug for that shit."
Shikamaru Nara, the newest addition to their motley crew at work, spoke in high regards about Sasuke selling to him. Although he is always none too pleased about the price, he claims the trips are always worth it-though the come down is earth shattering. Naruto has delved into this department before, nothing too irreversible or life altering. He's never done it to the point that he has to ween himself off of it. Most people say it's taking a gamble but he had far worse addictions to fret over.
There's a dark laugh on the other end of the phone, like thunder. Sasuke sighed, obviously enjoying having the upper hand.
"There it is, the real you. Not that fucking lie you broadcast at work. You know, I've had you pegged from the moment I met you. You're just like me, except you choose to lie about it. Why?"
Naruto scoffed, stepping outside onto the porch and slamming the door with a wince. A sharp pain slicing through his knuckles.
"Look, how about you spare me this whole-brother bear shit. Will you sell to me or not?"
"This shit doesn't come cheap and if you think you can get over on me you've got another thing comin."
Naruto shrugs, "Lucky for you I'm not strapped for cash at the moment. You needn't beat around the bush. What's the fuckin' price bastard?"
Sasuke made a throaty noise on the other end of the phone, "You."
"Which entails?"
There is shuffling on Sasuke's end, he breathes into the receiver and laughs quietly.
"You come over, we hit a few lines together and whatever happens—happens."
Naruto pauses on the last step, the brisk cold numbing his bloody fists.
"You're not fucking me and I'm not fucking you, that's out of the question. I'm not fuckin gay." He explains through gritted teeth, biting back the pain of clasping his cell so tightly. The blood on his fingers, smearing along his cheek.
Sasuke says, 'Ha' into the receiver. A sound so deep that it rattles his eardrum.
"Why put a label on two guys just shootin the shit? Don't be so fucking linear guy, I know how you straights operate. You like to be on the receiving end, it's easy to cope with that way. A mouth is ah mouth after all."
Naruto strides across the pavement, eyes staring at the silvery-pale moon.
What's with this guy? One minute he's with a girl, the next a dude. Regardless of the label, bisexual, Naruto still chooses to call him gay.
"I'll be there in ten teme...just have the fucking stuff drawn."