La Belle Dame Sans Merci: 26:
"Just Something"
Sasuke negotiates the garden path, quite carefully refusing to let any thought of consequence form.
Fresh grass and an assortment of flowers, the commercial kind grown for easy gardening and spots of color with no dignified history as somber symbols to cling to. His mother always disliked that sort of simple arrangements, bought for small coin and with no labor or thought attached. Both his mothers (both of whom also thought he should not actually have known this, the genius son).
Never, for as long as he can remember (and he can remember considerably farther back than this body of his has lived) has he felt at home in modern buildings, in the civilian districts with their picket fences and pastel curtains.
Perhaps he should venture to the Hyuuga stronghold one of these days, measure the living pulse of ancient blood there against his memories.
Memory, though (i sigh, pushing bangs from my face). What good is memory, of the personal kind?
There was the first began life, chasing memory, obsessed with gathering it around himself like a lover. To become a legend, and forever, cheat the world of forgetting, of making him disappear.
Then the second, when ironically that ambition had succeeded. When he was the child who could not forget, not a single part of the happiness or the hatred: had become a container for the past that reached through him into the future.
(what good is it that anyone remembers?)
His first mother's whispered bedtime stories about the old legends, the pre-time fairytale of bloody power, the relief when it turned out he really was a prodigy, because with his father gone and the rumors his mother had had a snake sire him, only being a genius could have saved him in a village moving into war.
The soil ought to be rich now, from all the blood, worms fattening in the ripe, rotting bodies of all the lost people he has known.
What good is it that I remember?
He knocks on the white door, hears shuffling inside almost at once. The door opens inwards, revealing a generous slice of Sakura's father, who startles at the sight of him.
"Good day," Sasuke says without inflection, realizing absently that he cannot recall when last he spoke to a civilian. "I'm here to see Haruno Sakura."
"I – see. This way, come on in."
Sasuke steps gingerly into the crowded hallway, nods curtly as the man directs up him the short staircase.
Up the familiar steps in the fake middle class-perfect house, to that same pale door. On which he knocks too, just to be sure (because i'm not sure).
"Yeah?" Sakura calls through it.
"It's me. Sasuke."
"…alright."
Sasuke notes that that is not an invitation. He also notes that his hand is pushing the door open.
Sakura does not look surprised (is he?) where she stands toweling her hair, wrapped in a bathrobe.
Trained, superior genius' eyes like his, yellow and tearless, cannot avoid noting the long golden pieces of same sticking to the robe, to the pillow in her bed (where her arm was soft against his back and his fingers hard around her throat and their eyes met and it wasn't too late after all. so he thought then. now i'm not so sure)
"Hello," she says, her voice a little hoarse around the soft tone. Her face is wary and impersonal as she puts the towel away, thin pink hair falling wildly about her face, cheeks pale underneath the shower-flush.
"I – meant to see you," he says, awkward with honesty (as i've never been with lies?). "After I – hurt you. I needed to see how you are."
"I'm alright," she says. Hints at a smile but looks tired and bitter. "I huddled under the covers and cried for a bit, but it passed. I'm alright now." Slim, hard fingers sketch an oddly hurt gesture towards her throat. "See? Not even a scratch left."
"I see. That's – good." He sounds like a voice from a headset, tinny and broken up.
"As a matter of fact," she says, speaking fast through inevitable pain, "I think you don't see. I think that's always been the problem, with us. With me and Team Seven in its entirety." She bites at her lip, a gesture traditionally hesitant but not so now, not with her. "You can't even imagine being frightened just because someone almost asphyxiated you."
(she can totally picture naruto being so used to waking up to sasuke's strangling that he simply grunts, elbows sasuke in the head and wraps his arms around him to make sure he won't try again, all without completely waking up. can't quite decide whether the absurd conjecture makes her want to giggle or cry)
(i was afraid enough when itachi came for me)
She clings to composure, shakes her head – a sad, distracted movement. "I imagine that that is the reason…well, for a lot of things, really. I've been, been trying to fit into Team Seven, to be a part of what it means, of what you have – you and Naruto and, and Kakashi too in a fashion – but sometimes, oft-times, I doubt that's even possible, for me." Her throat strains around a swallow. "I doubt it now."
And she looks at him, watches him standing in her normal room being the stuff of legends, and why won't he say anything?
"I'll always love you," she continues, shaky, certain. "You and Naruto both. But I don't want to – I don't want to die. And I think I would, if I tried seriously to cling to you."
Sasuke looks at her calmly, and he is not going to scream at her, he is not going to hit her, he is not going to hold her.
"I," she starts, eyes aching from tears she will not spill, switching approach as abruptly and tactlessly as Sasuke himself. "I assume Naruto told you about me and Ino."
"He mentioned he saw you kissing." Curt words, exact words, because it can mean everything or nothing. Sasuke knows that, of course.
"She understands some things," Sakura says, tired. Wanting to cry in his arms because she can't have him, ever. Wanting to cry for wanting to cry, because I don't even want him anymore, do I? "And she likes me, and she's good to me. I can laugh with her and talk to her and it feels nice when we touch."
It's not nothing; it's not everything. It's just something.
He thinks very seriously about killing Ino.
(you're supposed to be mine!)
Blood over the sunlight hair, blue eyes that are never to open again.
Except that's – too close to images he doesn't need, a reminder of certain other blue eyes that can't be allowed the milky sheen of death, ever.
He contemplates he might protect her, then, step between her and coming danger.
As he's done a hundred thousand times for Sakura, except on all the occasions when he really should have, when she really needed me to.
Why?
He doesn't know, can't find any spectacular feature to point to as a justification for that particular possessive protectiveness.
"Sasuke," she says, then. "Tell me what's been done to Naruto. Why his chakra is red."
He considers briefly, but is not, after all, used to lying to Sakura. "Kyuubi."
Because he wants to lash out, and to be needed and to give her something. Something precious and deadly, all at once.
Her face freezes slowly, horror and comprehension dawning gradually on her.
"Oh," she says, and sinks down onto her bed. "Oh."
He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back against the wall: if he went to her he would be going too far.
"That was always the problem," she repeats, voice jarring softly. "You don't – know me. And I, I don't know you. No, really – it's like, Naruto could never be anyone to you but Naruto. He's distinct and irreplaceable. Forced his way into your life. Kakashi too, I suppose. I was just the tag-along. I'm… something that can be perceived as precious, something to be protected, because you don't know anything about me. The me you know is something you created in your mind. And I did – did something very similar to you."
She draws in a deep, shaking breath, hands trembling on her thighs. Can't stop now.
"If I hadn't made it into your team you'd never have noticed me at all. You'd just have felt the same strange bit of affection for whatever sweetly helpless girl they put with you instead. It could just as easily have been Ino, at least she's brave, or Tenten. I'm so normal it didn't have to be me at all."
She leans her head backwards until the tears can't fall.
"I used to wonder what it was that Naruto thought he saw in me, but now I think about it it's so obvious. It didn't have anything to do with who I am either, just with how normal I am. Think about it. He never had anyone normal, the way average people do. All the rest of you, you were separate individuals. I just represented everything he'd always been denied, always wanted. He doesn't know me either, and now at least he's realized I'm not what he – what he's really after."
Neither her nor the Hokage title, at the heart of things. Just Sasuke, and by the way has he gone fucking mute or something?
She swallows thinly, gets up. "I have no special personality. I'm just an accumulation of what the average girl is supposed to be." Rubs at her eyes (and he is not going to wipe her tears for her, he is not) forces herself into everyday briskness, a harsh glossy cover. "Anyway, I have to be going. Do you want me to check the baby? I'm guessing you wouldn't like to return to the hospital for it." And there she pauses, thinks. "Hospital, huh – isn't that what every woman wants? To heal others, because they don't know what to do with themselves?"
Whatever it is that she wants from him, he can't give it to her. Doesn't even know what it is.
That shouldn't smart.
"Alright," he says. It's not a good idea, probably – being close to ninja he can handle, but a ninja is not what she is to me.
"I always thought," she mumbles, standing close and reminding him that, infuriatingly, even she is taller than he at present. "If it had been Naruto trying to stop you, before you went away – you wouldn't have just left him?"
Sasuke snorts at the ridiculous thought, unwinding from his defensive position. "He'd never have let me."
"Oh," she says, as though this were some kind of revelation instead of the most painfully obvious thing. "Of course. That's the whole difference, then. That's what it's all about."
Her hand ghosts over his stomach, chakra light and ticklish as it's absorbed into his body. He does trust her now, then: discovers it through the lack of unease as she does whatever it is that she does to him.
"If you ever thought about," she says, "that thing I said, about how I asked you to please don't leave me behind. Then don't, anymore."
"I never really have," he replies, and wonders why she flinches – if she's so worried about having burdened him with her dead weight, shouldn't it be a relief to know she hasn't?
You can't leave someone behind who was never with you.
Except that isn't really how it was, with Team Seven, their eternal shades of gray.
(you do understand i could not allow myself to think of leaf at all, right?)
There are steps in the hallway outside, followed by the swoosh of the door being opened without knocking.
"Hello, handsome," Ino says, eyes alight on the tableau of Sakura finishing her examination. Then she sees his eyes, and startles badly, staring in unmasked horrified disgust, the way Sakura could not allow herself or she would never have stopped screaming.
"Ino," she says, and smiles. It is not the kind of smile that can light up a vast hall, nor even a small room. It's bright and happy, all the same.
She turns to Sasuke, still warm (not for him). "It's healthy."
He nods, mechanically, walking fast out of the house, this stupid shallow dream that should not hold together in a ninja world; pastels impossibly surviving in the red darkness of reality.
Out in the village his progress is followed as always by moronic awe and crawling fear, people stopping to stare with failed covertness at him. Deserved though the sentiments may be, the attention itches, right now. Fleetingly meeting the gaze of a fat woman who takes an instinctive step back in apparent fright, Sasuke smirks humorlessly and jumps atop a roof.
The world is no clearer up here, but the wind is stronger and pleasant.
His feet know exactly where to go, mumbling directions into his legs until he's running across, occasionally hopping between, the roofs that have met so many ninja feet.
He should think they are rather past the stage where politeness requires knocking, just slips in through the open bedroom window.
It feels like it has been a very long time since he learned how easiest to sneak into this particular apartment, which floor-beds creek and how to avoid them, but it hardly matters: he hasn't been shielding his chakra. Walks quietly but no doubt noticed across the floor, stops very close to the man who lives here, standing so there is just an inch of bleak sunlight separating their forms.
"Kakashi," he growls.
Finally his once-teacher, once-lover, once-mentor turns from his indulgent study of a bookcase filled with rated paperbacks, stares mildly down at him. Kakashi looks worn, tanned and tired, as well one should expect after an intense mission in southern lands. His skin has gone leathery, clinging dark and rough around prominent bones (looks strong, solid, and you won't go away).
Sasuke's feet might have known the way here, and his limbs the easiest way to slink in through the window, but his mind is still sitting back and observing as his body presses itself against Kakashi's, hands clutching at his shoulders, face resting briefly against his chest.
"Didn't you only just make up with Naruto?"
Sasuke can't quite decide whether the pain in his tone is something the amusement fails to hide or a part of the deception that Kakashi is in any sort of control.
"This isn't about Naruto."
It's about Sasuke, even though Naruto will know, and they'll fight, and it will be – everything. The absolute thrill of being alive, of being needed unto death.
Before that there is this, Kakashi's neck for his arms to rest demanding around, Kakashi's hair and face for his fingers to conduct a teasing re-exploration off.
Because Kakashi wants him so much it borders on need, and I don't really have to prove to myself that Kakashi won't retreat from me.
(then what am i doing?)
"Of course," Kakashi murmurs obligingly. Sasuke can't tell whether he's being very sarcastic or perfectly matter-of-fact. It doesn't disturb him, right now.
Things are difficult, but he's a difficult person, he knows that much from others' (my own) reactions and readily admits to it.
"What have you been up to, then?" Kakashi asks at length, his hands a sudden comfort on Sasuke's waist.
Sasuke shrugs. "Nothing much."
Nothing that can be properly articulated, because Sakura belongs to the old Uchiha Sasuke, and language is the tool of what was once Orochimaru. He's not quite ready to breach the border between memories yet, reluctant to bring the resultant confusion upon himself. One day he will have to brave it, but as yet it is not necessary.
"Is that so?" Kakashi replies airily. "I heard you and Naruto were quite… excessive in completing your mission."
"We were told to annihilate as many minions as practically possible," Sasuke says, smirk-smiling. "It was perfectly possible to kill them all."
He tilts his head, letting the top of it rest with a strange, familiar sort of tense laziness against Kakashi's shoulder even as he faces the man.
"You still smell like the desert," he tells him.
"Huh. At least the sand didn't start telling me to be a good son and kill things."
Sasuke grins, just a little, not quite as guarded as he ought to be even though it's a careful, sardonic expression, more adult than his adolescent face is readily willing to produce.
"I imagine it must have been a scintillating trip, conversing with all the elaborate Sand folk."
"Unsurprisingly I preferred the conversation of my team."
"You didn't go alone?" I'm surprised at that, feel – cold.
Which is stupid. Kakashi is a professional.
So's Sasuke, and it's time he bloody remembered it.
Fuck.
"Anko went with me."
"Anko?" Sasuke replies, incredulous, and doesn't react. Won't react. "She's nothing but the failed byproduct of a dead man's work."
"She's survived him," Kakashi argues, still lightly, and curse and bless him for that. "She's caustic and has nice legs."
"Of course," Sasuke says. "Legs are known for their spectacular conversational brilliance."
"They have other qualities." The bemusement fades into something sharper, more resigned. "Is it me or her you're jealous of?"
"I am not jealous," Sasuke huffs immediately. Tells his emotions to fuck off and leave this to his brain, calms and puts on a spectacularly vicious smirk that is not at all related to a smile. "Why the hell should I be jealous of a man who's too in love with the Sasuke part of me to think, or a woman who's spent her entire life hating the Orochimaru part because she loved him so goddamn much?"
"Since when do you require a reason, Sasuke?" Tired, and yet with that glint of humor, and that grudging affection.
"This isn't fair to you," Sasuke says, and can't believe for long minutes that the voice which issued the absurdly true words was actually his own.
"I've never wanted fair," Kakashi mumbles in reply, mumbles it into his hair. Sasuke feels the sharp tip of Kakashi's nose against his scalp, thinks about stepping back and decides to press closer.
One of Kakashi's hands slinks from his hip up to his throat by way of his breast, stroking his neck to curve invitingly, his face into leaning backwards, his mouth laid open for a kiss. Of the languorous, melting kind Kakashi does best, sharp softened movements working their way inside you.
Sasuke lets his arms relinquish the grip around Kakashi's neck slowly, fingers splaying instead over collarbones, chest, undoing buttons, testing the skin within the confines of the soon pushed-open shirt.
It's tight and pale and lightly scarred. A singing expanse of jolts under his hands. And his mouth.
The bed is too far away, and would make this lie too bold besides.
Better to have Kakashi's deft hands unhook his pants here, better to shimmy partway out of them and aid his companion's lifting him; wriggle against the wall at his back before Kakashi's hand slips, distractingly, and Sasuke must bite his lip on a very undignified sound.
Better to have Kakashi ease himself into him fast and immediate and still with that ever-present infuriatingly tender carefulness, and cling hard enough he remains hanging on between Kakashi and the wall when they sag afterwards.
"Not that I'm complaining," Kakashi mumbles into his ear, pressing a chaste kiss to the side of his face, "but do you even know why you're doing this?"
The problem is that he does.
He wants to be better for Sakura, a better person, a good man. He needs Naruto to desire what he actually is.
Kakashi is a secure respite between them, a breathing space. His safety.
He snorts helplessly, bitterly into the rumpled fabric of Kakashi's shirt. Things aren't spinning crazily anymore, I have some measure of control, except, always except, when it matters most, and this isn't how it was supposed to be.
It is only long afterwards that Kakashi conjectures perhaps he should be ashamed. He shrugs it off after the briefest of contemplations, however: regularly purchasing Icha Icha Paradise for more than a decade has done wonders for his shame-resistance.
Not that he's ever thought, really, that Icha Icha Paradise is anything to be ashamed of. They're just stories, of pretty, perfect worlds where attraction is always mutual and resolved, laced with sweet love of the kind he's never even wanted to try for.
xxxxx
Naruto rolls out of bed groggily, only distantly aware he's been alone in it for quite a while. Right now he's actually kind of glad to have the space to himself, since he was forced into a private training session with Jiraiya last night and the bastard pervert got him drunk.
It was established which Naruto is slightly surprised it took Tsunade this long to confirm: that only half the original Kyuubi seal remains. Jiraiya took the other part of it away back in the forest, and it can't be redone. The master technique Sasuke placed on him he has removed, and the chaos-work of new incomplete sealing that was administered during his Tsukiyomi-induced nightmare coma were only ever frail restraints.
Right now his skull seems to be what's in danger of breaking, though. Goddamn Jiraiya.
Naruto has never been drunk before, and it's just typical of his life to let the first time include a seedy bar and a pervert hermit and too bloody much bloody awful sake. It didn't even taste all that good.
Punished with the murderous hangover slamming through his head, the cheap (necessary) relief and camaraderie it brought seems far from worth the price.
"Ugh," Naruto mutters, and gets to his feet, holding on to the wall partly because the world is spinning and partly because he has to keep his eyes closed against the dimmed light slipping past the curtains. At least Sasuke left those closed.
What he didn't do was be a considerate roommate and leave coffee on the stove or something. Or a bucket.
Oh shit, bad thoughts, bad thoughts.
Soon followed by bad action, because swallowing dryly only works for so long. How the hell did Sasuke manage every single morning to be leaning with precision over sink or toilet when the sickness hit him? Naruto barely makes it two steps in the right direction before the vomit pushes out of his mouth.
Oh, yuck. And the stench makes him feel even worse, prompting new rushes of retches.
Finally, bent over and gagging on the aftertaste, he's emptied his stomach utterly. Should probably clean up the mess, but can't find the energy. Needs sleep or food to get the energy, but he isn't tired anymore and the mere thought of eating makes his abdomen spasm threateningly.
"Shit," he mutters in a hoarse, cracking voice. Didn't Sakura-chan leave some painkillers somewhere?
Finally he finds the stashes of white pills in one of the cabinets, tucked in neatly beside containers filled with equally white rice.
Jeez, is Sasuke trying to color-coordinate the kitchen or something?
Yeah, whatever. He gulps down painkillers and something against the nausea, puts some water to heat on the stove before he lets himself collapse at the table and waits for the meds to kick in and the liquid to boil.
Mercifully, half and hour and half a pot of bitter tea later he actually feels mostly alive again. Probably Sakura-chan figured they'd need really strong painkillers after fighting. Fuck Kyuubi for being considerably worse at healing poisoning than physical wounds.
Oh well, time to brave the new day. The vomit-cleaning can wait until his stomach has stopped wobbling entirely. Sidestepping it and pulling a fresh shirt over his head, he locks the door behind him and jogs through the Uchiha Compound.
(to think this is my home now, this dead noble district with all the spilled blue blood nourishing the rich soil)
He quickens his pace at the sight of people milling around just outside the perimeter, slows down again once he comes close enough to realize it's not an assembly but a mob. Villagers of all ages and sizes, men and women and children, ninja and civilians. Armed professionally or with stones and household items. Mouths open in curses, in screams, in calling damnation over him.
It does not seem the Kyuubi unsealing is any kind of secret anymore.
Hands land on him the moment he steps past the gateway into the normal village – he'd hoped they wouldn't go quite so far. Words he can handle, spit he has dealt with before.
"I'm fucking tired of this," he sneers. "Let go."
He ducks a punch, decides this has really gone too far – there is no longer anything you can give me.
He's never liked being a victim, smashes his fist into the closest man's face and kicks another.
He's not sealed anymore, and most of them are only civilians.
No charka, he reminds himself. Don't kill anyone. Has to remind himself, because anger is in him now, the disgusted bitter fury, and he's done worse. It'd be easy.
This is for everything you've done to me.
This is for everything you never did for me.
This hard fucking village that is too precious too give you anything for free, ever.
Somewhere far away he thinks he catches sight of Konohamaru, who locks an attacker's arms behind his back but looks horrified when Naruto exploits the opportunity and knocks the impaired guy out. Further to the edge there's Iruka-sensei, Sakura-chan, but no one will listen to them.
The ANBU have come as well but are clearly employing a very strict don't-harm-civilians policy.
Naruto jumps atop a house, leaving the mess temporarily behind. Offering to, at least.
Well, if they're persistent and stupid enough to follow – nobody's doing anything, nobody's ever doing anything, not about orphans and not about sickening customs, not about him or Sasuke or Neji and Hinata alone and brutalized in their homes.
I'm tired of just smiling and taking it, tired of ignoring this shit and thinking someday, someday it'll be better.
He's finishing this now.
He snaps out of the concentrated fog of smashing his fists and feet into everyone approaching when the guy looming over him is thrown backwards before Naruto's hit has connected. He checks his forward momentum just in time to avoid thrusting his knuckles into Sasuke instead.
He must have dropped straight down from one of the roofs, like Kakashi is doing now, landing elegantly crouched next to them. He looks a ninja for once, all flashy display, and they're back to back, all three of them, and Naruto thinks he could cry but crushes a last nose instead.
"Is this any way to treat the son and selected heir of the Fourth Hokage, hero and savior of this village?" Kakashi's voice is a herald's, strong and carrying, not particularly pleasant, and Naruto reels with the receding tide of the crowd.
It is very clear that Sasuke is siding with him, and the Uchiha is everyone's coveted idol, and Kakashi's solid presence beside him speaks of the administration's support despite the reluctant ANBU – and what Kakashi just said… can't actually be true, can it?
But he's seen the pictures, of course he has, the monuments and paintings of the Fourth, and it does fit. Seems they realize it too, most people, or at least come to the sound conclusion they are better off pretending they do.
Take away the whisker marks, add some maturity and handsomeness, and his face would be disturbingly similar to the dead leader's.
The dead hero who was rumored to have a secret mistress, who in turn is rumored to have killed herself when word of his death was brought to her, even though she had only just given birth.
No one knew who she was, though. Only that she'd been beautiful and mysterious, as women of legend always are.
"Her name was Yuiko," Kakashi tells him, twenty minutes later atop a far-off roof. "She had the temper of a naughty brat and the looks of a love goddess. She was loved by all men, hated by all women, liked by no one." He shrugs, reaches for a cigarette (remembers her, cold smiling lips). "Nobody thought you had to know, or that it would be suitable to tarnish a great man's legacy with a filthy rumor few were likely to believe."
"Right," Naruto says, and looks only at Sasuke, at the signs he doesn't want to see but can't tear his gaze from.
Sasuke nods at him, a short graceful moment.
An hour later they have leveled much of the forest surrounding the village. They are both panting, stained with grime and blood. Both wearing ferocious grins of sick, adrenaline-slick excitement Naruto wanted never to feel, not like this, but now he does and there's lightning inside him.
"Would you stop fucking cheating on me with Kakashi!" he howls, one hand pushing sweat-matted hair from his eyes, the other edging Sasuke's cheek, dusting it with the merest outskirt of a blow.
Movement, furiously fast, connection, forged in bruises, until Sasuke's on his back and smirking widely up at him, eyes so red, so red. He obviously allowed himself to fall, could kick Naruto off any second, force a hand sparkling with chakra through him that Naruto would ignore through the tearing pain of it all.
He doesn't.
"Dammit, Sasuke," Naruto cries, and it's a yell, it's a whisper. "You have to give me something!"
He's reminded of the first time he was braced over Sasuke needing something desperately (when sasuke had one red and one yellow eye and spat in his face. over the waters, in the valley, in the end).
"Why don't you take it?"
He's shuddering, has gone through the fear and out past it where the world is stark. No less engaging.
"Because what I want from you can only be given."
Sasuke is quiet for a long time, so tense he's shaking faintly. Finally he says, breaking taboos Naruto hasn't even named: "Years ago you slept over on my floor. You were dreaming, mumbling in your sleep about a red thread of fate. That you'd finally found."
He collects himself, eyes going yellow instead of red, mouth forming a self-scorning little smirk.
Naruto nods, and things are okay, are not okay at all, but are, except they aren't, have to be, can't be, and–
It is hauling us in, the red thread of fate, throttling us.
xxxxxxxxxx