Eyes like Yours
By: Torn Little Butterfly
Standard Disclaimers Apply,
R, Incest, Bad Boy Gaara and his group of hippie accountants, who are not in this chapter but I'm running out of inspiration,
Sneak Peak: Itachi would give him kisses made from out of tangerines and apples, he'd feed him words like cotton candy clouds and stories like black forest cherry cake, whipped cream and bleeding cherries over Sasuke's hands that begged for more. He'd give him roses that smelled of fresh rainbows and orchids that felt like dancing in the rain.
====
Chap. Two: Dream
They'd gone to China town the next day, looking over statuettes of naked men in their full Renaissance beauty, angels with wings made of leaves and flowers, fairy princesses with green and red feathers in their long flowing hair, and witches with eyes like diamonds and claws like steel.
They went into a small shop that sold stink bombs, hats and souvenirs. Naruto laughed at a lighter shaped like a dildo and the owner, a pretty Asian woman with gentle eyes and a slim mouth blushed sweetly. Sasuke took a picture of her and her mother, grinning with his eyes at Naruto as he waved the dildo lighter around.
They walked past a girl with a green and black guitar and wearing cupid wings on a slender back, drum sticks wedged into the back pocket of her Dickies as she serenaded her friends with a powerful voice filled with dark light, she winked an almond eye through strange cut hair at them and licked a tall black haired boy with green eyes and his arms around her waist.
"Don't try to tell me what to do..." she sang, tapping her steel toed boot.
Naruto took a picture of her, an angel with the devil's heart.
"I love you." He said, and she laughed, giving him the finger good naturedly, she reeked of LA punk; Naruto wondered why she was here but the scars on her arms kept him quiet.
They walked by a home for people with AIDS and Naruto felt the tears of their pain deep to his marrow. He looked at Sasuke who raised his eyebrows at him; again, professional courtesy.
He laughed, feeling better, knowing Sasuke felt the same.
They walked into a Chinese restaurant with its name in dulling, peeling letters. It looked like a miniature temple with its walls of festive red and its pointed paper cut roof.
They drank wonton soup filled with sea food and vegetables, ate fried rice that wasn't too oily at all, lemon chicken that didn't taste so strong but crisp and fresh, and fried fish that melted into their tongues; they ordered warm sake and cold beer with their fake ids and Naruto grinned sweetly at the disbelieving waiter who shrugged and gave then what they wanted anyway.
Sasuke left a big tip and Naruto linked their arms, leaning far too close, just to give them all a scare, just to say, "We're together, alright?"
He never felt his heart like this, beating, naughtily happy and fast in his quivering chest.
Maybe this was what happiness was; maybe this was what he had been missing.
They walked around some more, out of China town, seeing the Starbucks' that littered the blocks; almost every other had two, one for each side. He pointed this out to Sasuke who murmured something about a latte. Naruto used his Chucks to kick him lightly on the shins and like this they behaved like children they weren't allowed to be, laughing to the heavens, walking on clouds made of cotton candy and breathing in air filled with the smell of chocolate brownies and melting vanilla ice-cream and listening to sounds of angels giggling behind their backs, kissing them both with fortune and love.
====
They walked the long way to the hotel, forgoing the crowded streetcars and buses, ignoring the honking beetle cars and the silver shoebox vans that speed along side them. They talked about art, what kinds of paints to use on what kind of canvas, and about how one time Sasuke ran away from a tutor who had large paint freckled hands and a beard like the pictures of Jesus. They whispered about the life on a Broadway stage, spotlights that bake you in your own love and fear of the people watching you and about how Naruto once starred as a poet with silk words and pale eyes in search of a muse with soft hands and pouting lips.
Naruto dragged his pant bottoms on the rough hard cement, sandpapering the bottoms of his jeans to become intentionally ripped, his pants already exposing too much skin and a bit of his orange poetry boxers. Sasuke didn't even comment when he tugged harshly on a piece of thread that was hanging the wrong way. He even ran a black painted nail on the golden skin of Naruto's thigh, drawing a silvery cold shiver up the skin that Sasuke had touched and the blond sighed softly, leaning against Sasuke's strong shoulder, a smile quirking on reddening, blushing lips.
They'd stop every so often staring into a shop with large posters of bronzed, sculpted men, draped over gnarled trees that miraculously birthed green apples. Naruto mockingly posed for Sasuke beside the posters, doing a remarkably good job of it too, as he held himself as if he was posing of a world famous photographer, whose eyes he looked into through the shutters in the camera.
When they finally did get to the Hotel Sasuke brought them both onto the roof of the building. The dark haired boy quirking an arrogant smirk before brandishing open the door he picked open using a piece of toothpick he stole from the Chinese restaurant and a safety pin that Naruto used to hold together one side of his shirt.
"You're a terrible attention whore." Naruto snipped as he held onto his shirt, thankful he wore a windbreaker. A laugh, deep and rumbling spilled from out of Sasuke's chest and Naruto looked up surprised, a tinker bell laugh struggled away from him, even though his laugh normally sounded like church bells on Christmas time.
"Yes, yes I am..." He whispered, running a hand through the hair over his eyes.
They stepped over to the edge of the roof, looking down on the people below.
It wasn't a terribly high building, but the hotel was high up enough that if they fell they'd shatter bone and maybe even die. Naruto stepped closer, feeling the pull of gravity in his marrow and in the body next to him, the body that held him back, hands on his waist, mouth near his ear.
"I wish we can stay like this forever." He whispered, bending down to tickle the soft blond hairs on Naruto's neck, and the boy quivered, half closing his eyes, a feeling that was so deep with in him he didn't allow it to get out, struggled.
"Here, on the roof?" Naruto asked, smirking to the outside but feeling like a lone boy in the super market, looking for his lost mother, on the inside.
"No not on the roof but anywhere, anywhere, with you." His voice was the voice of a dreamer, of a poet, of an artist who found a muse and didn't want to let him go.
Naruto nods, feeling filled with Sasuke's avocado salad light again and he turns to push his lips onto the ones that filled him with pain and love and sorrow and joy all at once, the lips that could give and then take it all away. He felt raw and scarred, he felt new and old and blind but he could see, he felt ugly and beautiful and when Sasuke brushed his fingers on the skin that showed through his jeans and his blue planet eyes opened in an eclipse of darker moonlight and the blond boy whispered that yes, he would be with you, because there was no other way, because you are all that's left, and I love and hate you for it.
He heard Sasuke's tinker bell laughter now, but it was soft, softer than his, and when he looked into the black holes of Sasuke's eyes, he knew, he knew it, that there was in deed light in there.
====
Electro-shock waves were singing up and down Naruto's body, filling the void filled with contracting muscles and rush hour veins with light like rainbows in a blue sky, he gasped, arching into and onto the body that held him tight. A hiss left his lips, body shuddering, no; he pleaded, no, not... not that no... not... yet... God!
"Yes," said Sasuke in a voice that Naruto knew would haunt him even when he was sleeping and he screamed arching and arching until he thought that his back was going to break, until he thought that his spine would snap in two...
He screamed, eyes closed and he could swear that afterwards he heard the snapping of his own muscles as it tried to ride the convulsions in his body.
Sasuke waited for Naruto to calm down, wanting Naruto to feel only him as he filled him over and over again, he coaxed Naruto to open his eyes, and delved into the deep blue he never wanted to be with out. Naruto cursed, fluently, his mouth free enough to let the words he tried so hard to keep in flow out, the insanity of it... the... intensity... this was...
A ghost of a smile against the pale thin skin of Naruto neck, and the blond felt the burning sensation inside him that signaled his beloved's completion.
"I love you..."
Barely a whisper and Naruto mewled.
"Love... love... you..." And blue eyes fluttered close to fall into slumber, the bruised smile on Sasuke's lips grew larger and he brushed a familiar tasting kiss onto Naruto's moist forehead. He rolled over and held onto the hand he'd grown accustomed to holding.
====
Sasuke dreamed of his brother's hands.
He dreamed of the soft whispers Itachi gave him when they were younger as he told him about the stars and the suns and the moons that lived in the sky.
Itachi would give him kisses made from out of tangerines and apples, he'd feed him words like cotton candy clouds and stories like black forest cherry cake, whipped cream and bleeding cherries over Sasuke's hands that begged for more. He'd give him roses that smelled of fresh rainbows and orchids that felt like dancing in the rain.
Itachi told him stories of how he used to be a great runner, about how he was the best, about how he wished for Sasuke to see him, to please, please see him, and Sasuke smiled a blind smile and he whispered for more of Itachi's words, because in his days of childhood, Itachi was all he ever saw.
He felt the white of his milk glass skin, he smelled the earth from which life blossomed in his brother's hair and heard the light that flowed from Itachi's heart and his own bleed for it, for more of it, for Itachi to please never stop because he was the only thing, the only most important thing...
They gave him back his eyes.
But that was what blinded him.
His brother was who he knew from without his eyes, his brother was his brother, but those eyes were not him.
Blood red eyes looked down on him, dead and cold, like those stories of a broken angel falling from heaven, a story that Itachi glorified in the forever nights that Sasuke used to live in.
And his heart quivered, deep in his chest, and in that chest he felt an emotion that he could not place when he was in the arms of his brother, a feeling like a trapped bird trying to escape from a too small cage, a feeling like the exploding of a balloon, it was the fear that blinded men, that kissed children goodnight as their angels turned around and left, falling off the clouds of cotton candy, black forest cake and tangerine apples.
"Don't worry."
Sasuke's mouth moved, but no words came out, he closed his eyes and imagined rainbow flowers.
"I'll protect you."
He curled inward, trying so hard to fill the void in his body that those Red Eyes stole away, he felt the orchids that were dancing in his hands, felt them cripple, then fold.
"I won't let them take you."
A word, a word he so wanted to use, he need to use, but it wouldn't come out, a word that was stuck in his throat filled with swallowed rain drops and burning acid.
"I'll never let them take you."
And when Itachi finally let go, he saw who they were; the people who had given him life, the people whose window eyes devoured him, the people who colored his wall the same red that were Itachi's eyes.
Sasuke snapped awake, feeling the dream fingers wrapped around his heart, and he forced his own body to relax, his heart fluttering painfully in his tight chest. It's just a dream. He thought. His parents were still alive. He reasoned.
Still alive.
====
When Sasuke woke up again, it was to the sound of Naruto's harsh breathing and the tossing and turning of one that is delirious and incased in the shadows of nightmares. Naruto twisted and turned, he moaned and called out names Sasuke has never heard before and clutched at the sheets Sasuke kept meticulously clean.
The dark eyed boy stood up, moving over to the kitchenette that the hotel had ingeniously provided almost automatically, forgoing the fear in him that told him to run as far away as possible. His heart felt weak and his mouth dry. Sasuke knew what was wrong with Naruto, he knew that the demons that were flowing in his blood called for more of the vile poison that the boy he loved shoved into his veins.
Sasuke set to work on a ginger and rice soup. He grabbed a bag of jasmine rice from off of the counter and poured grains of pure white into a pot small enough for the both of them, he washed the rice over and over again until the water was no longer a pale sickly white and was almost clear. He skinned ginger roots and chopped them up into long shoestring strips, and then he moved on to pour water into a pot and placed that beside the near boiling pot of rice, he stared at it for a while before sprinkling in the strips of ginger, almost as an after thought.
Sasuke took a look at the quivering boy and closed his eyes, pretending that he didn't care about Naruto, pretending that he was someone else. His heart murmured a protest against his chest but he ignored that too, feeling it curl in distrust of him and crumple up, almost just to spite him.
He brushed his ginger scented fingertips over the tops of Naruto's spiky hair, the soft pink skin of his lips and the sharp looking whisker scars on the boy's pale cheeks. He grabbed the satiny blue covers and draped it over Naruto's body, praying to a God that he used to believe in to please, please save him, to please let the demon inside get exorcised.
Sasuke took Naruto's hand in his, listening to the whimpers of a broken boy, closing his eyes to the image of Naruto's body, limp yet tensed, like a broken toy that was still whirling desperately to get its owner's attention.
The boy with hair like raven wings stood up, smelling the sweetly deep scent of rice in the air and the dizzying tang of ginger that followed it.
====
Naruto stayed asleep in the mornings and to the evenings, he woke up often just to call out Sasuke's name and grope for his warm body in the night. Sasuke answered his call with his body, not yet trusting his voice, a touch to the forehead, a kiss to dry cracking lips, and a barely audible whisper of his eyelashes touching the blond boy's cheeks.
Sasuke stayed with Naruto all day, watching his unconscious body, leaving only to buy more food or to replace Naruto's compress.
Once Naruto woke up long enough to hungrily devour food and then fall back asleep, quivering still, but quieter than he had been before.
Naruto would sometimes wake up screaming, and Sasuke would hold him until his sobs subsided and all that was left of Naruto's tears were his quivering sighs and tightly grasping hands on Sasuke's black shirt.
A woman with a weather roughened face would sometimes come into the room, nod once to the sullen looking boy and help him replace the sheets that Naruto had either torn or dirtied, Sasuke was grateful for her silence, grateful for her help, and he would once or twice smile at her without his eyes as he put Naruto back to bed.
The days and nights passed by slowly and each time the sun rose or set Sasuke would hope that Naruto would be miraculously better, that he would be there with a smile and a stray daisy for him to touch to Sasuke's nose and then later chew on just because it annoyed Sasuke so much. Naruto got better and better, and though there were improvements Sasuke kept wishing for more, but not too much; the paranoid superstitious parts of him prevented him from doing so and thus he waited with bated breathe the awakening of his sleeping beauty.
====
Naruto woke up to the smell of ginger and roses, the feel of a slit of light pouring down on him like warm honey kisses through a slightly opened window that let in the sounds of a busy city, a radio blasting in the street, a woman singing the blues with a powerful voice like the north wind, and the honks and zooms of the cars that passed by.
He turned his pale head to look over at another boy, his body twisted in a sever-looking position, curled up in a couch that Naruto distinctly remembered being pushed up against a wall.
He rose, tiredly, painfully, and he felt as if his body had not belonged to him for sometime; like a ghost had used his unconscious body to party and sing and dance until it broke and collapsed on the floor.
Timidly he walked to where Sasuke sat, face white like moon-stars, cheeks flushed and sweet looking on his angled face. He felt like a ballet dancer, walking up to a sleeping wolf in a play about red hoods and baskets filled with food. He smiled slightly, and his lips split and bled and a taste like licking a handcuff filled his mouth
He plucked a daisy from the vase near his bedside table, and tapped Sasuke on the nose with the yellow middle like a fairy god mother waking up a Cinderella from a tear-filled dream.
Sasuke's midnight sky eyes opened and he met Naruto's blue moon ones in mid- smile.
His eyes widened, comically almost, and Naruto felt himself get dragged into the warm body that he missed for so long.
"Wakey, wakey..." He muttered, giving Sasuke a kiss despite their morning breath and a little spot of drool.
"Thank you, you mean." Sasuke countered, filling his whisper voice with rubber swords of play fighting.
"Thank you." And Naruto winked up at him and placed the long green daisy stem in his mouth.
====
Started: May 12, 2004
End: May 14, 2004
Edited: May 15, 2004
====
Thanks:
Neo Discord, Illusive x Peace, Dinelutz, Kal, Lost in a Reverie, Lostlily, Kaiyo no Hime, somebody else, Kisu, Watermelon Gal, Kashshaptu, Kuriko, Yanagawa Hanako, EmeraldHorse88, and Sandy.
Yami no Ichigo thanks all the people who have responded to her words, she believes all of you are angels (even the ones quite a bit loopy from pills, because Yami no Ichigo was loopy too, darn Tylenol, when she started this, so she very much sympathizes) and wishes you all sweet dreams flavored with tangerine apples, blue-eyed Naruto skies and ravens with Sasuke's wings.
Thank you.
====
Notes:
I was so surprised when people noticed and loved my work. I was, and still am, even more surprised when people told me that this was a dark fic. ;;; I believe it was Lost in a Reverie who informed me of this. I'm both grateful for her/his information and slightly taken back. Have I really been writing so much angst and darkness that I have forgotten how to write happiness, has it been so instilled into my system?? ;; ah, well, all the more reason to prove myself wrong again and try as hard as possible to write this genre called: "light fics." I hope my ending is at least a little bit happy... because I spent a lot of time on that...
By: Torn Little Butterfly
Standard Disclaimers Apply,
R, Incest, Bad Boy Gaara and his group of hippie accountants, who are not in this chapter but I'm running out of inspiration,
Sneak Peak: Itachi would give him kisses made from out of tangerines and apples, he'd feed him words like cotton candy clouds and stories like black forest cherry cake, whipped cream and bleeding cherries over Sasuke's hands that begged for more. He'd give him roses that smelled of fresh rainbows and orchids that felt like dancing in the rain.
====
Chap. Two: Dream
They'd gone to China town the next day, looking over statuettes of naked men in their full Renaissance beauty, angels with wings made of leaves and flowers, fairy princesses with green and red feathers in their long flowing hair, and witches with eyes like diamonds and claws like steel.
They went into a small shop that sold stink bombs, hats and souvenirs. Naruto laughed at a lighter shaped like a dildo and the owner, a pretty Asian woman with gentle eyes and a slim mouth blushed sweetly. Sasuke took a picture of her and her mother, grinning with his eyes at Naruto as he waved the dildo lighter around.
They walked past a girl with a green and black guitar and wearing cupid wings on a slender back, drum sticks wedged into the back pocket of her Dickies as she serenaded her friends with a powerful voice filled with dark light, she winked an almond eye through strange cut hair at them and licked a tall black haired boy with green eyes and his arms around her waist.
"Don't try to tell me what to do..." she sang, tapping her steel toed boot.
Naruto took a picture of her, an angel with the devil's heart.
"I love you." He said, and she laughed, giving him the finger good naturedly, she reeked of LA punk; Naruto wondered why she was here but the scars on her arms kept him quiet.
They walked by a home for people with AIDS and Naruto felt the tears of their pain deep to his marrow. He looked at Sasuke who raised his eyebrows at him; again, professional courtesy.
He laughed, feeling better, knowing Sasuke felt the same.
They walked into a Chinese restaurant with its name in dulling, peeling letters. It looked like a miniature temple with its walls of festive red and its pointed paper cut roof.
They drank wonton soup filled with sea food and vegetables, ate fried rice that wasn't too oily at all, lemon chicken that didn't taste so strong but crisp and fresh, and fried fish that melted into their tongues; they ordered warm sake and cold beer with their fake ids and Naruto grinned sweetly at the disbelieving waiter who shrugged and gave then what they wanted anyway.
Sasuke left a big tip and Naruto linked their arms, leaning far too close, just to give them all a scare, just to say, "We're together, alright?"
He never felt his heart like this, beating, naughtily happy and fast in his quivering chest.
Maybe this was what happiness was; maybe this was what he had been missing.
They walked around some more, out of China town, seeing the Starbucks' that littered the blocks; almost every other had two, one for each side. He pointed this out to Sasuke who murmured something about a latte. Naruto used his Chucks to kick him lightly on the shins and like this they behaved like children they weren't allowed to be, laughing to the heavens, walking on clouds made of cotton candy and breathing in air filled with the smell of chocolate brownies and melting vanilla ice-cream and listening to sounds of angels giggling behind their backs, kissing them both with fortune and love.
====
They walked the long way to the hotel, forgoing the crowded streetcars and buses, ignoring the honking beetle cars and the silver shoebox vans that speed along side them. They talked about art, what kinds of paints to use on what kind of canvas, and about how one time Sasuke ran away from a tutor who had large paint freckled hands and a beard like the pictures of Jesus. They whispered about the life on a Broadway stage, spotlights that bake you in your own love and fear of the people watching you and about how Naruto once starred as a poet with silk words and pale eyes in search of a muse with soft hands and pouting lips.
Naruto dragged his pant bottoms on the rough hard cement, sandpapering the bottoms of his jeans to become intentionally ripped, his pants already exposing too much skin and a bit of his orange poetry boxers. Sasuke didn't even comment when he tugged harshly on a piece of thread that was hanging the wrong way. He even ran a black painted nail on the golden skin of Naruto's thigh, drawing a silvery cold shiver up the skin that Sasuke had touched and the blond sighed softly, leaning against Sasuke's strong shoulder, a smile quirking on reddening, blushing lips.
They'd stop every so often staring into a shop with large posters of bronzed, sculpted men, draped over gnarled trees that miraculously birthed green apples. Naruto mockingly posed for Sasuke beside the posters, doing a remarkably good job of it too, as he held himself as if he was posing of a world famous photographer, whose eyes he looked into through the shutters in the camera.
When they finally did get to the Hotel Sasuke brought them both onto the roof of the building. The dark haired boy quirking an arrogant smirk before brandishing open the door he picked open using a piece of toothpick he stole from the Chinese restaurant and a safety pin that Naruto used to hold together one side of his shirt.
"You're a terrible attention whore." Naruto snipped as he held onto his shirt, thankful he wore a windbreaker. A laugh, deep and rumbling spilled from out of Sasuke's chest and Naruto looked up surprised, a tinker bell laugh struggled away from him, even though his laugh normally sounded like church bells on Christmas time.
"Yes, yes I am..." He whispered, running a hand through the hair over his eyes.
They stepped over to the edge of the roof, looking down on the people below.
It wasn't a terribly high building, but the hotel was high up enough that if they fell they'd shatter bone and maybe even die. Naruto stepped closer, feeling the pull of gravity in his marrow and in the body next to him, the body that held him back, hands on his waist, mouth near his ear.
"I wish we can stay like this forever." He whispered, bending down to tickle the soft blond hairs on Naruto's neck, and the boy quivered, half closing his eyes, a feeling that was so deep with in him he didn't allow it to get out, struggled.
"Here, on the roof?" Naruto asked, smirking to the outside but feeling like a lone boy in the super market, looking for his lost mother, on the inside.
"No not on the roof but anywhere, anywhere, with you." His voice was the voice of a dreamer, of a poet, of an artist who found a muse and didn't want to let him go.
Naruto nods, feeling filled with Sasuke's avocado salad light again and he turns to push his lips onto the ones that filled him with pain and love and sorrow and joy all at once, the lips that could give and then take it all away. He felt raw and scarred, he felt new and old and blind but he could see, he felt ugly and beautiful and when Sasuke brushed his fingers on the skin that showed through his jeans and his blue planet eyes opened in an eclipse of darker moonlight and the blond boy whispered that yes, he would be with you, because there was no other way, because you are all that's left, and I love and hate you for it.
He heard Sasuke's tinker bell laughter now, but it was soft, softer than his, and when he looked into the black holes of Sasuke's eyes, he knew, he knew it, that there was in deed light in there.
====
Electro-shock waves were singing up and down Naruto's body, filling the void filled with contracting muscles and rush hour veins with light like rainbows in a blue sky, he gasped, arching into and onto the body that held him tight. A hiss left his lips, body shuddering, no; he pleaded, no, not... not that no... not... yet... God!
"Yes," said Sasuke in a voice that Naruto knew would haunt him even when he was sleeping and he screamed arching and arching until he thought that his back was going to break, until he thought that his spine would snap in two...
He screamed, eyes closed and he could swear that afterwards he heard the snapping of his own muscles as it tried to ride the convulsions in his body.
Sasuke waited for Naruto to calm down, wanting Naruto to feel only him as he filled him over and over again, he coaxed Naruto to open his eyes, and delved into the deep blue he never wanted to be with out. Naruto cursed, fluently, his mouth free enough to let the words he tried so hard to keep in flow out, the insanity of it... the... intensity... this was...
A ghost of a smile against the pale thin skin of Naruto neck, and the blond felt the burning sensation inside him that signaled his beloved's completion.
"I love you..."
Barely a whisper and Naruto mewled.
"Love... love... you..." And blue eyes fluttered close to fall into slumber, the bruised smile on Sasuke's lips grew larger and he brushed a familiar tasting kiss onto Naruto's moist forehead. He rolled over and held onto the hand he'd grown accustomed to holding.
====
Sasuke dreamed of his brother's hands.
He dreamed of the soft whispers Itachi gave him when they were younger as he told him about the stars and the suns and the moons that lived in the sky.
Itachi would give him kisses made from out of tangerines and apples, he'd feed him words like cotton candy clouds and stories like black forest cherry cake, whipped cream and bleeding cherries over Sasuke's hands that begged for more. He'd give him roses that smelled of fresh rainbows and orchids that felt like dancing in the rain.
Itachi told him stories of how he used to be a great runner, about how he was the best, about how he wished for Sasuke to see him, to please, please see him, and Sasuke smiled a blind smile and he whispered for more of Itachi's words, because in his days of childhood, Itachi was all he ever saw.
He felt the white of his milk glass skin, he smelled the earth from which life blossomed in his brother's hair and heard the light that flowed from Itachi's heart and his own bleed for it, for more of it, for Itachi to please never stop because he was the only thing, the only most important thing...
They gave him back his eyes.
But that was what blinded him.
His brother was who he knew from without his eyes, his brother was his brother, but those eyes were not him.
Blood red eyes looked down on him, dead and cold, like those stories of a broken angel falling from heaven, a story that Itachi glorified in the forever nights that Sasuke used to live in.
And his heart quivered, deep in his chest, and in that chest he felt an emotion that he could not place when he was in the arms of his brother, a feeling like a trapped bird trying to escape from a too small cage, a feeling like the exploding of a balloon, it was the fear that blinded men, that kissed children goodnight as their angels turned around and left, falling off the clouds of cotton candy, black forest cake and tangerine apples.
"Don't worry."
Sasuke's mouth moved, but no words came out, he closed his eyes and imagined rainbow flowers.
"I'll protect you."
He curled inward, trying so hard to fill the void in his body that those Red Eyes stole away, he felt the orchids that were dancing in his hands, felt them cripple, then fold.
"I won't let them take you."
A word, a word he so wanted to use, he need to use, but it wouldn't come out, a word that was stuck in his throat filled with swallowed rain drops and burning acid.
"I'll never let them take you."
And when Itachi finally let go, he saw who they were; the people who had given him life, the people whose window eyes devoured him, the people who colored his wall the same red that were Itachi's eyes.
Sasuke snapped awake, feeling the dream fingers wrapped around his heart, and he forced his own body to relax, his heart fluttering painfully in his tight chest. It's just a dream. He thought. His parents were still alive. He reasoned.
Still alive.
====
When Sasuke woke up again, it was to the sound of Naruto's harsh breathing and the tossing and turning of one that is delirious and incased in the shadows of nightmares. Naruto twisted and turned, he moaned and called out names Sasuke has never heard before and clutched at the sheets Sasuke kept meticulously clean.
The dark eyed boy stood up, moving over to the kitchenette that the hotel had ingeniously provided almost automatically, forgoing the fear in him that told him to run as far away as possible. His heart felt weak and his mouth dry. Sasuke knew what was wrong with Naruto, he knew that the demons that were flowing in his blood called for more of the vile poison that the boy he loved shoved into his veins.
Sasuke set to work on a ginger and rice soup. He grabbed a bag of jasmine rice from off of the counter and poured grains of pure white into a pot small enough for the both of them, he washed the rice over and over again until the water was no longer a pale sickly white and was almost clear. He skinned ginger roots and chopped them up into long shoestring strips, and then he moved on to pour water into a pot and placed that beside the near boiling pot of rice, he stared at it for a while before sprinkling in the strips of ginger, almost as an after thought.
Sasuke took a look at the quivering boy and closed his eyes, pretending that he didn't care about Naruto, pretending that he was someone else. His heart murmured a protest against his chest but he ignored that too, feeling it curl in distrust of him and crumple up, almost just to spite him.
He brushed his ginger scented fingertips over the tops of Naruto's spiky hair, the soft pink skin of his lips and the sharp looking whisker scars on the boy's pale cheeks. He grabbed the satiny blue covers and draped it over Naruto's body, praying to a God that he used to believe in to please, please save him, to please let the demon inside get exorcised.
Sasuke took Naruto's hand in his, listening to the whimpers of a broken boy, closing his eyes to the image of Naruto's body, limp yet tensed, like a broken toy that was still whirling desperately to get its owner's attention.
The boy with hair like raven wings stood up, smelling the sweetly deep scent of rice in the air and the dizzying tang of ginger that followed it.
====
Naruto stayed asleep in the mornings and to the evenings, he woke up often just to call out Sasuke's name and grope for his warm body in the night. Sasuke answered his call with his body, not yet trusting his voice, a touch to the forehead, a kiss to dry cracking lips, and a barely audible whisper of his eyelashes touching the blond boy's cheeks.
Sasuke stayed with Naruto all day, watching his unconscious body, leaving only to buy more food or to replace Naruto's compress.
Once Naruto woke up long enough to hungrily devour food and then fall back asleep, quivering still, but quieter than he had been before.
Naruto would sometimes wake up screaming, and Sasuke would hold him until his sobs subsided and all that was left of Naruto's tears were his quivering sighs and tightly grasping hands on Sasuke's black shirt.
A woman with a weather roughened face would sometimes come into the room, nod once to the sullen looking boy and help him replace the sheets that Naruto had either torn or dirtied, Sasuke was grateful for her silence, grateful for her help, and he would once or twice smile at her without his eyes as he put Naruto back to bed.
The days and nights passed by slowly and each time the sun rose or set Sasuke would hope that Naruto would be miraculously better, that he would be there with a smile and a stray daisy for him to touch to Sasuke's nose and then later chew on just because it annoyed Sasuke so much. Naruto got better and better, and though there were improvements Sasuke kept wishing for more, but not too much; the paranoid superstitious parts of him prevented him from doing so and thus he waited with bated breathe the awakening of his sleeping beauty.
====
Naruto woke up to the smell of ginger and roses, the feel of a slit of light pouring down on him like warm honey kisses through a slightly opened window that let in the sounds of a busy city, a radio blasting in the street, a woman singing the blues with a powerful voice like the north wind, and the honks and zooms of the cars that passed by.
He turned his pale head to look over at another boy, his body twisted in a sever-looking position, curled up in a couch that Naruto distinctly remembered being pushed up against a wall.
He rose, tiredly, painfully, and he felt as if his body had not belonged to him for sometime; like a ghost had used his unconscious body to party and sing and dance until it broke and collapsed on the floor.
Timidly he walked to where Sasuke sat, face white like moon-stars, cheeks flushed and sweet looking on his angled face. He felt like a ballet dancer, walking up to a sleeping wolf in a play about red hoods and baskets filled with food. He smiled slightly, and his lips split and bled and a taste like licking a handcuff filled his mouth
He plucked a daisy from the vase near his bedside table, and tapped Sasuke on the nose with the yellow middle like a fairy god mother waking up a Cinderella from a tear-filled dream.
Sasuke's midnight sky eyes opened and he met Naruto's blue moon ones in mid- smile.
His eyes widened, comically almost, and Naruto felt himself get dragged into the warm body that he missed for so long.
"Wakey, wakey..." He muttered, giving Sasuke a kiss despite their morning breath and a little spot of drool.
"Thank you, you mean." Sasuke countered, filling his whisper voice with rubber swords of play fighting.
"Thank you." And Naruto winked up at him and placed the long green daisy stem in his mouth.
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Started: May 12, 2004
End: May 14, 2004
Edited: May 15, 2004
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Thanks:
Neo Discord, Illusive x Peace, Dinelutz, Kal, Lost in a Reverie, Lostlily, Kaiyo no Hime, somebody else, Kisu, Watermelon Gal, Kashshaptu, Kuriko, Yanagawa Hanako, EmeraldHorse88, and Sandy.
Yami no Ichigo thanks all the people who have responded to her words, she believes all of you are angels (even the ones quite a bit loopy from pills, because Yami no Ichigo was loopy too, darn Tylenol, when she started this, so she very much sympathizes) and wishes you all sweet dreams flavored with tangerine apples, blue-eyed Naruto skies and ravens with Sasuke's wings.
Thank you.
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Notes:
I was so surprised when people noticed and loved my work. I was, and still am, even more surprised when people told me that this was a dark fic. ;;; I believe it was Lost in a Reverie who informed me of this. I'm both grateful for her/his information and slightly taken back. Have I really been writing so much angst and darkness that I have forgotten how to write happiness, has it been so instilled into my system?? ;; ah, well, all the more reason to prove myself wrong again and try as hard as possible to write this genre called: "light fics." I hope my ending is at least a little bit happy... because I spent a lot of time on that...