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A/n: Alrighty then. I had a load of fun with this chapter, congrats to all of you that saw this coming. Because that means you're observant. Anyways...so, yes, I know Naruto's perspective wasn't featured in this chapter despite it being the last of part 3. But there's going to be a part 3.5 so no worries. I'm actually looking forward to writing the next chapter now. I feel totally relaxed. I hope you enjoy. Thanks for all the kind words.

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Fate's Garden

Part 3 - Inked

Chapter 8 - Influence

Sasuke cringed, biting his lip as his eyes watered. The orgasm had faded, leaving him with nothing but a familiar agony in his backside. His knees wobbled until finally they could no longer support him and he collapsed onto the bed, his face in the pillow. Naruto, equally as exhausted behind him, but with the luxury of moving without pain, moved away from him and off of the bed. Sasuke listened as his boyfriend dug through the dirty laundry hamper, probably for a towel to wrap around his waist.

"Be back in a bit, going to shower," his gruff voice explained as the door opened and closed.

Sasuke mentally cursed him for being able to walk. He got to go shower immediately after while Sasuke lay in bed, stewing in the stuffy room that smelled like sweat and sex. Naturally a delightful smell, but time made it unpleasant, aiding it to settle onto Sasuke's skin, making it crawl and writhe. Oh how he longed to shower. But even if he could bring himself to get off of the bed and follow Naruto to the shower down the hall he would be near his boyfriend again. Surely this would defeat the purpose of being in the bathroom in the first place. By the time Naruto would be strutting confidently back down the hallway Sasuke would be slumped over on the shower floor, and would remain there for hours. He couldn't afford to be found like that by his parents. Who knows what they'd say.

Speaking of his parents, Sasuke was finding it more and more difficult to ignore his mother's wellbeing. He'd tried to avoid getting attached to his family in this life. Sasuke knew he was moving on and he wasn't going to allow himself to become too close to an entire family…well….getting close to this Naruto wasn't too much of a problem, really, because he'd be seeing his own Naruto soon enough. Sasuke had inadvertently come to love his younger siblings, despite his best intentions to not to. Suoh and Masu were just…he couldn't really explain himself. Babysitting was annoying, yes, but some nights when Masu would knock on his door saying she had a nightmare, he couldn't turn her away. She would clamber into his bed and snuggled against his chest, tickling him with that head full of adorable black hair. Suoh was more like a loveable annoyance, sort of like Naruto, and reminded Sasuke of their relationship when it was more brotherly than not. He tried his best to keep an eye on him, and give him the attention that his parents never seemed to allow him.

But…his parents Sasuke had so far not had any trouble avoiding and disliking. His father, he discovered, was at his core a good person. The business world had created in him the insensitive work ethic necessary for one to keep moving at such a fast pace in such a world. He worked late, came home later, and ignored his children. Sasuke was fine with being ignored, but he knew his brother and sister weren't. His otherwise harmless introvert personality had gone into overdrive, and instead of being reserved, calm, and mellow he was snide, manipulative, passive aggressive. He treated his wife like garbage.

Worst of all was his mother's condition. The very first day in this life, Sasuke had seen his father throw his mother into the car for a doctor's appointment. She had looked horrible, as though she would keel over dead at any moment. Sasuke's impression of her had been accurate. She had an unidentified auto-immune disorder, and had for at least a year. It wore away her body's defenses against things such as the common cold, or the flu. She'd caught the flu only a week or so before Sasuke had arrived in this life, and she still had it. The auto-immune disorder made it difficult for her body to actually absorb the 

necessary rest from any sleep she got, even REM sleep. She was always tired, and due to the flu she'd had for over half a year now, she'd lost more body weight than any person should. No matter what she ate it would always come back up within the hour. Her fever never seemed to break, so she was always sweating, too hot one minute, and too cold the next. A terrible infection of the skin in her eyelids, and around her eyes was so far past any hope of being cured she was scheduled to have her eyes removed a week from now so the infection wouldn't go anywhere else in her body. For about a month now, Sasuke's father had been speaking with lawyers and doctors all over town and the outlying cities about 'pulling the plug'. She was so out of it that her ability to walk and answer people at all was the only thing keeping her from being medically declared catatonic. Soon she would be moved to the hospital for the surgery, though debate was still raging between the doctors and the lawyers about whether they should even undergo the extremely expensive surgery on a woman that was being considered for termination anyways.

Sasuke didn't want to have an opinion on the matter. He hardly saw his mother anyways; she stayed in her room, attended to by a hire-out nurse his father had acquired a few months ago. Suoh was old enough now to have a slight grasp on what was going on but Masu was still clueless. The two of them were going to lose their mother very soon, more than likely their older brother as well. Then all that was left for them was a father that didn't care. Sasuke had no doubts that his father would give them up to the state. What kind of life was that? How could he just abandon his little brother and sister and move on? It was terrible to think, but he knew that this life, just as the others, did not matter in the grand scheme of things. He had to let go. But who cared about this 'grand scheme'? Sasuke didn't. He wanted to stay here; at least long enough to make sure Masu and Suoh had a proper life. Or, as good of one as he could manage. He was already considering what sort of career he'd have after high school and how he could take care of his siblings, win custody of them from his father. He probably wouldn't even have to go to court, he could just ask and they'd be handed over.

Still…even as images of moving into a house with Naruto, and Masu and Suoh flooded his mind he tried to force himself to ignore it. There was no chance he was staying here that long. He could feel it already, he wasn't sure how, but he could feel his death was nearly upon him. Sasuke wished he could warn this Naruto, soon he would be leaving, but he couldn't. He wouldn't know. He sighed, pressing his face deep into his pillow. It really just wasn't fair.

His pillow disappeared from his arms and he found himself standing, painless, and clothed in the grandfather's living room. The room was empty, and Sasuke wondered why exactly he was there. Was he there for a checkup? To see how he was doing in his remedial life for fuck ups that don't listen? Sasuke had the impression that gods were all knowing, omnipotent, so wouldn't they know how he was doing? He grumbled, making his way to one of the couches to relax until either someone entered the room to speak to him, or he returned to his life.

Sasuke decided that, though it was painful to leave his current life behind, and it was torture thinking of the unfairness of the life Masu and Suoh would endure…he was ready. He was ready to move on and meet back up with the dobe. This Naruto had given him a different understanding, and though he was certain he wasn't in the wrong nearly as much as dobe, he could admit that it was a little bit his fault. He was the defector, the one who'd gone and left Konoha to join up with Orochimaru. But Naruto had put him through a few extra lives of suffering, and technically it was his fault in the first place that Sasuke was a part of this whole god thing. Naruto was the god child, and Sasuke was his mate. Technically Sasuke wasn't even supposed to be joining him in the garden. Now he was, he was again the one to stand out. The only mortal mate out of any of the past gods' mates to join the odd family in the garden was him.

"So, Sasuke, how've you been?" a familiar voice called, a voice that Sasuke was baffled to hear.

"Tala?" Sasuke's head flew up off of the pillow he'd rested it on, having curled up on a couch, to see the amiable red head striding towards him.

"You appear so flabbergasted, my doom and gloom friend, I expected you would have figured things out by now," Tala quirked his lips into an almost pout, effortlessly pulling an armchair towards the couch Sasuke was lounging on.

"I'm…wait…I…I don't understand, what are you doing here?"

Tala crashed easily into his chosen chair, facing Sasuke. He perched his elbows on his knees, folding his hands and resting his chin upon them. His eyes were sparkling merrily, a smirk on his face that Sasuke was accustomed to seeing on his friend. But he wasn't used to seeing him here. He didn't understand at all. Then, seeing his confusion, Tala sighed. All of a sudden he morphed, the air around him blurring and shimmering like an imaginary oasis on a desert sand dune. No longer was his friend sitting before him, but instead was the grandfather, the tottering old man he knew, and yet quite apparently, didn't know.

"I…what…what was that?!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"Little one, haven't you wondered just exactly who I am?"

"Of course I have."

"And all this time you have yet to arrive at an answer, though I understand you've been thoroughly…distracted," the grandfather smiled in an innocent manner, but his choice of words had Sasuke flushing in embarrassment.

"Who are you then?"

"Fate."

Sasuke gaped at the old man for more than just a moment, he was sure. Now that he'd come out and said it, Sasuke was amazed he hadn't thought of it before. The tying of souls, his seemingly distracted appearance…the…there were so many things about him that made sense. Was the grandfather even a grandfather? Or was that simply the form he chose around his family? He had assumed the role of Tala in Sasuke's current life.

"Are you…are you in every life that we've been in?" Sasuke asked.

"Of course, I attend to every world in existence, a nice perk, omnipresence, don't you think little one?" Fate smiled warmly.

"Who were you in our very first life, before we knew about any of this?"

Sasuke was really curious now. He should have seen it coming that it would have been Tala in his current life. But the others he couldn't even imagine who they might have been. It was likely that he'd never encountered him in those lives. But then, instead of simply telling him, Fate transformed to show him who he had been, and still was in that life. Sasuke was rooted to the spot, he felt as if he'd had a bucket of ice water dumped over him.

Itachi smiled warmly at him like he had when Sasuke was very little, "Hello little brother."

"No, no, no, no…" Sasuke's mind went blank, but his mouth kept moving, repeating the word over and over, desperate to get away from the image that had tormented him so long. But Fate would not relieve him of this agony, and instead waited.

Eventually Sasuke couldn't take it anymore and leapt off of the couch and ran from the room, not sure what he was doing. He stalked about the kitchen, which was becoming less and less oversized for him. He was nearly tall enough to use the kitchen counters like regular ones, he noticed. He paced about the room madly, ignoring the sounds of footsteps approaching the room he'd sought safety in. Itachi had followed him into the kitchen and was standing calmly in the room with him, waiting.

"Sasuke, look at me," Itachi's words were soft, but not a suggestion.

Sasuke looked at him, though he didn't want to. His big brother, all this time, wasn't really his brother? He was Fate? How ironically cruel. If he had succeeded in his goal, Sasuke would have been killing the mortal form of the creator of all the worlds? It was laughable, really, if one wasn't innately traumatized.

"I am still your brother, the one you grew up with and was determined to kill."

"No, how could you be?" Sasuke's eyes remained affixed to Itachi's face as he'd been ordered but he wished he could look away. He wanted so badly to run from the room, return to his life and the mindlessness of his boyfriend's arms.

"Naruto's divinity is just another facet of his person; he is still your Naruto, isn't he?"

"Of course…"

"I was not conscious of Fate's hold on me, I acted as I wanted, all the decisions, and words, and thoughts were mine. Even when I return to my life I will not remember this conversation, or even the possibility of being a shell for Fate. It will be like a dream for me."

"Then what would the point be?" Sasuke wondered, "If he did not have a control over you, to influence the world, why would he use you?"

"Sasuke," Itachi chuckled, "don't you find it ironic that Fate was responsible for the slaughter of an entire clan, the prevention of a world war, the defection of one of the S-ranked bingo book criminals, and inadvertently the death of both a god child and his mate?"

Sasuke faltered a moment as Itachi's mild laugh ruffled the air again, "Fate has no influence?"

"I suppose he does have some…"

"Besides that, I have multiple shells in each world, for obvious reasons, your older brother just happened to be one of them," just like that Itachi was speaking about himself with the voice of Fate.

That was all the warning Sasuke needed for the glamour that overtook his brother and changed him again. Expecting the grandfather he was pleasantly surprised to see his friend Tala again. Tala smirked at him and strode across the kitchen, leaning his elbows on the island counter. Sasuke mimicked him, feeling far more relaxed in the company of the crazy redhead he'd been spending his time with for so long now.

"See, there you go, smiling again," Sasuke checked his face, trying to force any 'smile' off of it, "Oh come off it, even a bastard like you gets to be happy."

"And you're my friend?"

"Of course," Tala nodded, "Now what say you we play a game of mao?"

Sasuke frowned, his eyebrows stitching together in a displeased knot, "I'm not going back to that life…am I?"

"Now what made you guess?"

"Why? Why didn't I die first? I wanted to say goodbye to him," Sasuke grumbled, "and to Masu and Suoh…"

"They'll be fine, you're not really leaving them," Tala assured him.

"But, I thought we-"

"You're not dying in this life, so technically it can be returned to its original version," Tala explained, "same will be happening with your mate."

"Won't that be sorta weird though, for that Sasuke? Wake up with a boyfriend all of a sudden?"

"He'll have memories implanted into him of the experiences you accumulated."

"And Naruto…?"

"Same."

"Can I…can I still check on them later…if I want to?"

"Sure thing, buddy," Tala smiled, "now how bout that game?"

End of Part 3.