Almost got a hundred favorites for Home. I honestly never expected it to be this liked.

Excuse any mistakes; I don't have a beta reader and when you read the same text over ten times, the errors seem to blur together.

Prompt: Roads unraveled, by Linkin Park.


l.

Before he feels the pinch of disappointment clench at his heart and nip at his skin, before the sun burns the sand red and drains dying spirits from the ground, Sasuke stands just shy of the border, a speck of blue and black in an endless sea of waxy green leaves and wet tree bark. The sound of the forest wakes him to dusk, and as he walks under thick canopies fringed with creepers and vines, a mesh of entwined branches holds the light back, permitting only scant bars of anemic moonlight to penitrate and reach the ground where the moss and undergrowth spur in a whirl of plasticity, warring for the warmth to brush their surfaces. Up ahead, the treeline stretches on either side of him to give way to the desert to delve in and create an oasis of plantation and arid dust.

A soft breeze wafts past him, ruffling his hair and cloak. Sasuke holds his breath to keep the scent of home in his lungs.

The sand crunches under his boots like gravel, travelling between his toes and under his skin in a way of greeting that is both conflicting and suffocating. The air is cold but fresh, washed to an antiseptic quality like oxygen from a hospital tank, but Sasuke is not ungrateful: he remembers the scorching heat of the desert from that one day from the war, remembers the sudden fear that had grabbed his lungs and squeezed his wind pipes when the vast expanse of endless sand dunes had engulfed him in a choke hold. It had seemed endless then, the earth, with no end or beginning to speak of, no sign of anything anywhere. Here, atleast he knows he's not alone- he has a waking sky above his shoulders and the forests behind his back, and it's better than having a cloudless, blinding horizon spread across the world and a glaring sun pounding over his eyebrows.

His legs aches as he pushes past the sand posts, muscles protesting in a groan when he slips little wisps of blue chakra to his feet to cover greater distances. But his back is warm and his arm is numb and he just wants to fall in her pastel pink embrace again and lie there forever, till the stars change constellations and the moon collides with the sun in an orgy of cosmic light.

So he pushes himself to be faster, sliding a soldier pill down his throat when the tendons in his neck start to throb. He reaches Suna in good time, just a dash before dawn, but the empty pathway beyond the gates confuse him.

"I'm afraid you've been misinformed, " the guard, a chunin with scarlet hair and steel eyes that gleam under the glare of the sun, says, "Haruno-san left our borders a week ago."

Sasuke has never in his life felt such an unparalleled urge to throttle Kakashi and snap his neck as he does now. Already, he can feel the migraine thundering.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he mutters, "Uchiha."

The guard blinks. "Pardon?"

Sasuke releases a measured breath and clarifies, "Her name is Uchiha Sakura." And then he wants to laugh at himself for noticing such a small, inconsequential detail.

The guard frowns in puzzlement but refrains from saying anything else. Sasuke squats down the urge to groan and slides a tired hand over his face; his skin feels like marble under his fingertips.

"Did she say where she was going?"

The guards exchange a glance, before the redhead answers, "We're sorry, but such information does not fall under our jurisdiction." A pause, then: "Perhaps the Kazekage can help you."

Sasuke thinks of sea - foam insomniac eyes and sandy spikes of crimson hair that bleed under the sun, and he thinks he's too tired to think of any other mirror to equate how the kage of sand resembles the dark reflection of his wife and how Kakashi should never play match - maker or patch - maker or any other kind of maker if he can help it. It's a resigned slip, a silent whisper of his resolve and his muscles have had enough and he's had enough and would it be too much if he just falls back and sinks into the sand behind him?

The morning sun emerges to take its place in the sky, burning bright like molten iron sizzling in a furnace. A tall shadow falls over the ground besides him. The guards bow their heads as Sasuke tries to blink the sleep of his eyes.

"Gaara."


Guest who was confused: Yes, yes he does. Because he was angry and later it was his shame kept him from going back.

As always, drop a review and tell me what you think.