A/N: konnichiwa: Don't sacrifice your rest, yeah? Lack of sleep cuts more years from your life. :) And thank you.

fitha: Thanks, but whatever did you mean with 'one of those authors'? :)

- August 24, 2012

The Sky

by Hic Iacet Mori

Chapter 22

He heaved with dry sobs and he reached out and it's so dark—

"Naruto…"

—and his eyes were so hot and he couldn't douse the fire—

"Naruto!"

—and there was nothing left to hold and nothing left to see—

"Open your eyes, Sasuke."

—and his breath caught in his throat and his eyes flew open.

"Now tell me what you see."

He straightened up at the voice and turned, to his right, and it was—

"Nii-san—?"

—he leaned on, his full weight on that familiar side, Itachi uncaring of the pressure Sasuke had been inadvertently forcing upon him in his slumber.

And—he sucked in a deep breath, held the air they shared in his lungs, stopped breathing until his blood had carried it around his body—this was Itachi, his Nii-san, and Sasuke was confused and elated and dizzy with lightness, and his heart thumped inside his chest just a little bit faster, and it's been so long even if it didn't seem so, strangely, and Nii-san is smiling—

He shivered when wind rolled through the tiny gaps between them, cool yet warmed immediately by their familiar proximity, and there were sounds of rustling and it was an odd comforting song, and he looked up by habit and blinked in surprise at dancing green.

It was the tree that had been dead in ten long years.

"But you're—" Sasuke fumbled, all shades of confused, and a shaft of light filtered through the leaves and blinded him for a glorious second, "The tree, you—"

Itachi replied with a slight shake of his head, "Foolish otouto," he chuckled, and Sasuke felt a beat of joy when it started, a pulse of grief when it ended. "Look," Itachi repeated, his head tilting to the view across him.

And Sasuke obeyed without protest, turned to follow with untempered haste—he was Otouto and perhaps he'd never grow up—and gasped at the expanse of diamonds shining blue beneath the sun, lapping gently at softened wood holding up a familiar dock.

"That's—" his eyes widened, struck by an understanding that thrummed like realization. "This tree—just there—?"

"Yes."

"But why—why here too?" he asked, a touch desperate, wanting to know, to understand, "Why would Naruto—"

And Sasuke stopped.

"Sasuke," Itachi murmured, voice gentle as the wind, "what is it."

"Nii-san—" his voice cracked, unable to hide, from him, how his whole being was undone by a name—

"Naruto…"

And Sasuke threw himself at his brother—

"I'm—"

—and Itachi let him cry.

It was night when he stopped.

Sasuke had never seen the night before.

It didn't surprise him it was blue.

"I want him back, Nii-san," Sasuke rasped out, wrung of all strength that had flowed ceaseless from his eyes. "I want to remember… every little thing about him. I want to know him."

He inwardly cursed when he felt the telltale sting anew—how much more did he need to lose, when would it ever be enough? Could a person waste so much water and die of dehydration, exhaustion?

And yet—

"I…"

And yet despite his weakness, Sasuke drew back and found strength in a new purpose, a new goal.

"… I want to know why…"

Swore to the wind that he would get the whole truth.

"… why he hid from me…"

Vowed to the sky that he would remember all.

"… all these years…"

Sasuke would fight to know—

"He wasn't hiding, Otouto."

—everything.

His head whipped up. "Nii-san?"

"You only seek he who hides," Itachi answered, patted him once atop his head to assure, to guide, "You didn't seek for a reason."

"Because I don't remember forgetting him," Sasuke said, too tired for an argument, too spent to let out and there should have been nothing left at all, "How do I seek when I don't remember someone was hiding from me? How do you remember that you forgot? Nii-san," he smiled thinly—because Sasuke liked to smile, once, and it was often for his brother—"you've gotten senile."

Itachi was amused—Nii-san used to be, a lot, and frequently because of him—

"You must be forgetting something, Otouto. Your Nii-san is a tensai and I—" his mouth curved—Sasuke had always been the reason behind his smile, "—do not forget."

His eyes slowly widened.

"Our eyes are not simply a curse, Sasuke. They are also a gift."

Sasuke's heart started racing. "Gift…?"

"Just as mine is a gift to you."

"Nii-san…"

"Our eyes saved your future, once," Itachi said, softly. He reached forward, fingers stretched out, a familiar gesture of affection—

"It has saved your past too."

Saved my past—

—only to pass his head and hold him, by the nape, push him forward to rest his forehead upon his own, gently—

"Time to wake up, Otouto."

"Time for him to wake up."

Itachi drew back—

"For you to wake up."

—and Sasuke could see—

"Naruto!"

—on his brother's other side, sleeping the sleep of the innocent—

"He never left your side—"

—and Itachi closed his eyes—

"—the way I did."

—and he was Sasuke, and Naruto, eyes closed and hands entwined, heads upon each other's side and dreaming the dream of the blessed.

"You always had everyone watching you."

Sasuke had only wanted—

"You could do everything and we were—

—Naruto's eyes on him.

"—too different."

His own drifted open and he realized that it never really changed.

"Naruto?"

And with a white-hot surge of lightning obliterating everything else burst the longest night of his life with a deafening crash.

"Shit—!"

Sasuke sat up, groaning, his head pounding a heartless tempo as he cradled it between his hands. His head hurt like hell, and there was an incessant clanging in his ears like some pair of fucking cymbals, an atrocious excuse for an instrument he once heard day in and out one unfortunate week of guarding a drummer on an ego-trip—wasn't even in any actual danger, just wanting to flaunt his wealth by hiring an authentic ninja, the bastard—

He smirked, vicious—he made sure the pathetic civilian would never abuse that privilege again—only to wince at cruel unseen hands prying his skull apart—

"Fuck…"

And he couldn't believe it was possible but this headache was even worse, actually worse than that time he woke up with the mother of hangovers, and he still grimaced when he remembered it for some unfortunate reason—

"Dammit—"

His former teammates had thrown a party to celebrate his birthday, months after the fact, and Suigetsu was unbearable and Karin too clingy and he simply swallowed sake after sake to force the night to quickly end—Juugo, ignorant of his true intent, happily plied him with bottle after bottle, thinking he actually liked the horrid crap the way he downed saucer after saucer that came in contact with his hand, until Sasuke threw etiquette out of the window the way he had sanity hours ago and began drinking straight from the bottle and it was a happy birthday, maybe—

"Fuck, my head—"

Sakura happened upon their group well into their twentieth or so celebration, and expressed her opinion of the whole affair by breaking their table into clean halves and throwing Suigetsu to the nearest wall, cracking it. The owner had been too terrified to stop her despite her apologetic smile, just letting Sakura do what she wanted which she did, gladly, with a captivated Suigetsu. Karin had burst into hysterical tears, shrieking she was so not invited to her birthday when I remember when it is!, Juugo brooded over a bottle that rolled to a stop by his feet and began coaxing it awake, and by the remnants of the wall Suigetsu opened his mouth, alcohol-numbed of the pain of a busted kneecap and broken jaw, and slurred a song of a pale bastard and a pink shemale bringing him home to raveeeeeesh ughhh mooore haaaa-haaaaa-haaaardeeeeer uhhhhhhnnnn ah-ah-ah! aiiiiiiieeee!—

"Sasuke-kun!"

—and Sasuke wouldn't stop laughing—

"Stop tickli—Sasuke-kun!"

Kakashi found them halfway to his house, his figure slumped beside Sakura, his hands on his stomach as he shook, uncontrollable—

"Ooh, a happy drunk, huh?"

—on a night the old Team Seven became the funniest shinobi team in the world.

"Let's get you home, na?"

And Sasuke outright grinned, and laughed, and failed to hear the devastation that his next words wrought—

"Suuuure, usu-ra—ton-ka… usu… moron—!"

—before he woke up, and cursed, and punched his head with the raised hand that had tried to reach the sky once again.

"Even before, huh?" he whispered to himself, his head heavy on his palm, the incessant ache negligible beneath the comfort of a discovered truth: Sasuke remembered Naruto even then—remembered back when he didn't.

"Even before…"

He sighed and winced again at the motion. He lay back with great care and closed his eyes, frowning, deciding to attempt to ease the hardly-dissipating pain. He inhaled slowly, deeply—a prelude to meditation—and his frown deepened, his brows wrinkling as a faint scent teased the edges of his awareness. He released his breath in the same manner and took another breath. There it was again—in and out, again—so hard to place but—another breath in, out—it smelled—

Odd.

Sasuke took quick sniffs, seeking. He could smell it on his clothes. On the bedsheet. In the air, barely, but it was there. On the pillow. Different but quite familiar, as if it had pervaded through the room for too long that his nose had gotten used to it, had forgotten about it, if not for leaving and returning a week after and smelling it again and wondering why it was there, and how—

And who—

He growled in frustration. It nibbled at him, intensified the pulsing rampant in his temple. What was it?

Sasuke grabbed the pillow and hit himself with it, displeased. It was too early, he knew, the sun was barely up, but he was a man who could assimilate and formulate within a second of wakening and that he couldn't, like some ordinary civilian, vexed him. His last thoughts before sleep continued after wakening, unbroken murmurs in his head while his senses immediately alerted him of his surroundings—he wasn't one to wake up forgetting, or confused, or seeking and not grasping—

"How do I seek when I don't remember someone was hiding from me?"

Even that time he was hangover Sasuke remembered everything of that night. Beneath closed eyes memories had quickly rushed in, and the humiliation of acting the inebriated fool compounded the unforgiving hammers on his head. He was darkly pleased to continue punching himself silly in the head if not for reflex kicking in—Sasuke rolled over to his side, barely missing a pissed-off Sakura's punch, and he assumed she was unhappy that he had called her a moron—"I may have… uttered untruths in my intoxication"—because it couldn't be the fact that he had thrown up on her the night before, accidentally, as it was Kakashi who pushed her when he had started heaving—

"How do you remember that you forgot?

He growled again, hit his abused head with his pillow again. So damned frustrating and why couldn't he place this smell and this pillow wasn't white and what the fu—?!

"Nii-san—"

… This wasn't his pillow.

"—you've gotten senile."

Sasuke slowly sat up.

This wasn't his bed.

His breath rushed out in realization.

This wasn't his room.

"How—" he started uneasily, his eyes darting around, mental fingers rifling through his head for answers to make sense for him. His comforter wasn't blue, nor was his bedsheet—and this was his brother's room, clearly, how stupid not to notice and what was he doing here—but come to think of it, Itachi never used a bed, he was so used to his futon and preferred it, in fact, and why didn't he notice this before—

And Sasuke looked around, eyes clear—perhaps for the first time in years—and the curtains fluttered with the wind and it was dark blue—

Nii-san didn't have a curtain.

But he washed them, every month, on the same day like clockwork, maintained the cleanliness of the room that he would not otherwise go into, after the first night he returned from the hospital—washed the pillow cases and comforter and bedsheets and curtains by hand even if no one would use it—

He turned to his side, his mind whirling with thoughts, dropped his feet to the floor and strode barefoot to a closet, frissons borne of dawning barely hidden by his skin—he flung it open and ignored the dusts flying out of its confines, and rifled through shirts and pants and pushed deeper inside the storage full of remnants of the life Itachi led and found—

Nii-san's futon—

—folded neatly, wrapped in plastic, the grimy cover extending its life well beyond its years. Cleverly camouflaged by clothes faded of the same color. Cunningly concealed by his own consciousness since that night, from himself, and he remembered—

"Why…?"

—stalking room after room in the house of his childhood as thunder clapped outside with the torrent of rain, as a storm of emotions ripped inside him, through him, as he wept for his loss completely, finally, the walls dried of blood the only witness to his breakdown, on his knees and crawling, crumbling—

"Why did I live?"

—grieving for what was lost and what could never return, for this acceptance that crushed its weight on his chest without mercy—

"Why did you leave me?"

—it was time to give up when he thought he had a long time ago—

"Why?"

—to surrender finally the dream of getting his family back—

"Don't leave me alone here!"

—the hatred, the rage, the hope that refused to die—

"Come back…"

—howling with the pain of a wounded god—

"Come back!"

And he kept clawing at the floor once upon a night drenched a dark red, desperate for the scent of blood that would connect him to them—

"I didn't mean it!"

—but there was none and its absence at once ruined and renewed him—

"Come back!"

—and his mind returned, slowly, as he sat by the wall—

"I'm sorry…"

—drained of strength, of will—

"Sorry..."

—empty.

"Sorry."

It was hours before he stirred. Hours before he moved. Hours before he knelt, and bowed, and prayed, and mumbled wordless wishes for the souls of the departed.

It was hours before he reached Itachi's room, and climbed on the dusty bed, and drew a pillow to his face, and breathed an earthly scent, and thought of forgiveness—

"Dobe…"

—and dreamed of an infinity of blue skies for the first time in his life.

His breath expelled in a mighty rush.

"Even then," he gritted out. He punched his head again, and still again, for good measure.

But it wasn't enough.

"Even then," he spat out.

Four months after his coma. On the first night he returned home. Four months after—on that same night—

His hands balled into fists.

Four months after he woke up, compelled by a force he can't deny, Sasuke fought with all his might to go home the same night. He had grieved for a loss it took him years to accept, in a room they were last a family before duty and honor and vengeance and love—

"Come back!"

Had grieved for a loss he had never even known—

"I didn't mean it!"

For Naruto—

"I'm sorry."

How many times?

"Sorry…"

How many times had he called for that idiot without his knowledge? How many times had he pleaded to that dumbass for forgiveness? How many times had he begged that moron to come back?

"Sorry."

How many times?!

He replayed them, in his mind, a furious loop of the past, tried desperately to retrieve the words that fell from a tongue loosened by grief, the enraged questions and naked pleas in the room where his parents died, where Itachi died before dying in his own arms on a fated day, the room of blood where Sasuke himself died to his past—

His eyes widened.

He didn't smell blood.

Sasuke clambered out of the room.

He didn't smell blood when for all the times he tried to approach even just the door when he was young, the scent would so nauseate him that he'd turn and run away, stung by anguish and weakness and the terror bubbling up his stomach, still so much the child left behind that cursed night. He knew it was psychological, that his mind was tricking him and making him smell things that weren't there—but they were, he'd always known, there was no one around to clean them—but that knowledge never made it go away until he couldn't take it anymore and he boarded up the room, the way he did his brother's room—

Shit.

He stopped by the doorway.

Shit.

"It wasn't covered," Sasuke announced to the emptiness in the room, voice soft and mind dazed—nothing had been covered and how the fuck did he not notice—

And clean. The rooms had been clean but for light films of dust—as if someone had neglected to clean a few months ago, not a few years ago. Even his own room had been in that state—

How had he not realized—

—Because Sasuke remembered attributing, in passing, the maintenance of his house to the kindness of the Godaime Hokage. It had made sense to him then and he had thought no more of it. There had been more important things weighing upon him after all—there was revealing the truth of his clan and his brother to the Hokage; there was standing in judgment for going against the way of the ninja; there was bearing his punishment for turning his back to his home; there was atoning for his sins against his comrades, his brother; there was reclaiming the honor of his family's name…

He had also been exiled, temporarily, after the night he grieved, forced to await his trial and judgment in a safehouse by the border—

Kakashi found him the next day in a pool of his own vomit, his Sharingan spinning wildly to form into Mangekyou into Eternal Mangekyou to break and form and spin again—the seals to stop the flow of his chakra, drawn all over his body while he slept for months, had failed in the violence of his uncontrollable chakra. The ANBU with the Neko mask had him entrapped in Shichūrō no Jutsu, his back on wooden pillars as he seized on the cool earth, and heaved bile and blood and water for all masked attendants to see, himself unseeing as he curled in and cried out and thrashed and dreamed—

"Sasuke! Wake up!"

It was the first time he didn't reach the sky.

"Sasuke!"

He woke to a fuuton-infused kunai to his neck.

"—to?"

The ANBU reported what happened to the Hokage—Sasuke was deemed unfit to stay in the village proper, a danger to her people, to himself. He had acquiesced without question, still at a loss himself as to what truly happened, and the seals he had broken without his knowledge were reconstructed and doubled though this time, the central nerve of his power, his eyes, were left untouched.

"You had a nightmare, Sasuke. It's expected and it's nothing to be ashamed of."

Six months passed without incident while he served his punishment after the verdict beyond the borders of Hi no Kuni, and he was allowed entry into the village and residence in Uchiha Compound once again.

"It wasn't."

It took another six months and a year before all manners of restraint were finally released.

"I know."

And here now Sasuke stood, free of all restraints but for one he never knew, lost in his thoughts inside the room where his family once sat together in a life so distant it was surreal. Inside the room he had covered as much as a child of eight could.

A room that wasn't, the first night he returned.

He shook his head, his mind racing beneath cruel stabbing ghosts of pain. What benefit would it give the Hokage to continue with the upkeep of a massacre site? What benefit would it give the village to persist with the care of the house of a missing nin? A leader of a hidden village couldn't care less if a room was boarded or not, if it was clean or not. Moreover, would the Godaime care about a garden purely for tomatoes—

His knees buckled and he leaned on a wall, suddenly too weak to hold himself up. He shook his head, eyes wide, breath quickening in stunned discovery—

We never had one.

He had just taken a glance and accepted, like everything else—

"Teme?"

And it could only be him—

"Nightmare again?

Couldn't be anyone else—

"Shh… gon' be 'kay… yeah?"

Because he remembered last night—

"To me you have become—"

The dreams that weren't dreams—

"—my closest friend, yeah."

Remembered how Naruto pulled him down—

"Stupid moron! This is my sleeping bag!"

—comforted him—

"Ehehe, sorry. Must've sleepwa—fucking shit!"

—even when Sasuke never knew—

"Do that again and you'd have your other eye to worry about—"

—back when they were a team—

"I can kick your ass even without two—!"

"You total moron," Sasuke breathed out.

"Get. Out!"

He wasn't sure who he really meant.

As if wakening from a trance, Sasuke straightened up, the pulsing in his head a distant ache, and watched his feet automatically carry him to every room of his house. Eyes so much clearer, he saw potted plants that were never there, paintings restored that weren't, ornaments so unremarkable they were nigh imperceptible. He never bought a clock with the growth process of a frog, but he dutifully replaced the batteries whenever it slowed down the barest second. He never had a tissue holder, much less a one of a grinning cat-cow—he couldn't really figure out what it was and he just used it as a pen holder, specie-identity crisis a concern alive and dead in the same breath. He never installed a windchime either, but it was there by his study and he was too lazy to remove it…

And the old toothbrush he used to clean the toilet bowl… a hideous orange…

Sasuke flitted about in a daze, bewildered by these things he hadn't given a second thought to, had taken for granted for years, for some reason—

He finally reached his own room—an hour glass, with sands of blue, timed to exactly three minutes, like the wait before a cup ramen is ready to eat, na, usuratonkachi?—and an absence in his room shook him to his core.

His legs slowly folded beneath him.

"So I decided that you would become my rival."

Remaining strength—

"I didn't want to lose because I was called a loser all the time."

"The picture—"

"Even when we became Team 7, I still thought this way."

—gone.

Under glimpses of blue skies, Sasuke remembered sleeping.

Under glimpses of blue skies, Sasuke remembered dreaming.

Under glimpses of blue skies, Sasuke remembered nothing—

—but a promise.

"I always tried to lie but..."

"Uchiha."

"… but the truth is..."

"Uchiha...?"

"… I always wanted to be like you."

"Uchiha!"

Red eyes snapped open in a flash.

"What are you doing here?"

Sai's eyes curved, smile glowing eerily by the blue of Chidori Senbon Sasuke controlled by the skin of his teeth. The slow spin of wheels in blood highlighted the taut white of his calm.

"Waking you up."

He stood unhurriedly to his full height, forcing the unwelcome man to back away—his senbon had dissipated in the wake of electric cobalt coming alive over his skin. His head inched right, slightly, and his eyes slid askance—his question a low hiss, the prelude to a serpentine strike.

"What are you doing inside my house?"

And the smile of the fucking asshole just grew, as if getting struck by Chidori Nagashi was an event he'd been looking forward to all week, forever.

"Looking for Dickless."

Sasuke heard a distinct snap somewhere in his head and suddenly, the lightning riding over his body whipped at the air around him.

"But it appears he left you again."

Blue light struck out, a noose around a pale neck. Sai appeared unperturbed even as the chakra within began to tighten its hold.

"Do you dream of it, Uchiha?"

"You," a low whisper, "know nothing."

"Do you cry?"

The black wheels abruptly stopped.

It was the hawk, talons out, tearing the soft underside of its prey.

Sai exploded.

Blood red receded.

It wasn't enough.

Sasuke closed his eyes.

Nothing ever was, lately.

Sai jumped down from the ceiling, head tilted to the left as he watched the remaining ink blots sizzle in a vain bid to survive. They vanished in little hisses, tiny inconsequential deaths—they weren't him and to Sai, that was it and to Sasuke, it wasn't enough.

Not enough anymore.

Dark eyes slid to where Sasuke stood, an eternally-curious child with no concept of tact. "It's an honest question—is that it, what I must say to convince you? I'm curious, Uchiha. It's a real question."

Sai took a step forward, and red chased black chased red in Sasuke's eyes—

"He cried."

—and tripped on black, stricken, hit by an unexpected blow—

"What would it take for you to cry, I wonder," Sai went on, thoughtful, as Sasuke fought in his weakness to hide the damage of those words, "Perhaps your heart has become too hard? Or perhaps—you hide it well, like him?"

He couldn't even summon a little strength, halt his tormentor—

"We cried when he left," confided Sai, heedless, tearing him bit by bit, "He broke my heart and it never got hard again,"—and Sasuke held on to what he could, fighting a battle he didn't ask for—"I had Ugly check it twice, she said it's normal,"—braced himself as he was hit—"but it doesn't feel the same, so I asked Godaime-sama for a second opinion,"—just a little bit harder, just a little bit more—"I never forgot the sensation of shattering behind my sternum, when he left."

Then Sai looked up, smiled, and with sincerity ringing—

"I want to kill you."

—Sasuke could move, again, and Sai was on his face with eyes blazing, scroll unfurling—

"I really don't care what they say, he's the bond I've been waiting for."

—his own body jerking to a stop—

"Even if he acts like he doesn't care, even if it hurts more than thinking that he hates me."

—heart pounding beyond miles—

"Even if he rams all the Chidori he could pop up inside my chest, or stick his stupid sword behind my back, or lord over all his cool new fucking jutsu."

—head spinning—

"Even if he tries to kill me, as long he's nowhere near my heart, I know he doesn't mean a fuck of it."

—soul aching—

"I know he still feels it."

"But I can't," Sai added, eyes closing and scroll sealing, voice of a distant past fading in the quiet of morning, "I can't kill the person he died for. But how many times, Uchiha? How many times must Naruto-kun die for you?"

Silence—as he crumbled, just a bit more—

"Answer me," Sai commanded.

"I," Sasuke gritted out, still so much an Uchiha in his ruin, "did not ask—"

"But you received," Sai cut in, glass-edged, eyes bare for hate to show, "And that's how it is, na, Uchiha Sasuke? You are the bond he's waiting for, he said. That he doesn't care, as long as you are nowhere near his heart. Because it is his to give, to you, and you took it. And you broke it and threw it away and he accepted—"

"If he accepted—" a rift, manifesting, "—then why—" still so much human, "—did he seal—" still so much Sasuke after all,"—my memories?"

Sai blinked—and then his mouth curved, patronizing—

"You are both idiots."

Sasuke lunged before restraint crossed his mind. He stiffened when he grasped something decidedly not shaped like someone's neck—

"I do not know your whole story," Sai admitted, still candid yet oddly gentling, "and I am not interested to know at all. However," lips softened to a sad smile, head bowing to hide his eyes, "Naruto-kun's story is incomplete without yours, and I have fought alongside him to see it to its end."

Sasuke pulled in a surprised breath. He looked down at his hands—

—and Sasuke stared back from over his drawn shoulders.

"And this," Sai's head rose, conviction on his features, "is not it. This is an interlude, nothing more. Unless he is right, and you don't really feel it anymore—"

"It's too late for me, Naruto..."

"The only cure to forgetting is remembering, Uchiha. And—" Sai took a step back, sized him up with a critical tilt of his head, "—you are remembering, aren't you."

"It's just too late."

"Perhaps you'd prove him wrong." A smirk, "Perhaps there is something special in you, after all."

It's not.

"Perhaps you can bring Naruto-kun home."

And for the first time since they met—

It's not too late, Naruto.

—without cruelty or malice—

"Hn."

Sasuke smirked back.