Fate's Garden
Part 4 - Hysteria
Chapter 2 - Who We Are
At first, when Sasuke awoke, he wasn't quite sure that he had. He couldn't see anything, nothing but darkness. Like he had his eyes closed. So he tried to open them, but he couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel his eyes. He couldn't feel his eyelids so he couldn't open them, but he could move his arms, and move his head back and forth. He could hear a beeping, and it was getting on his nerves. Sasuke may not have been able to feel his eyes, but he could still feel his nose and cheeks, and the ridge of his brow. Over them he could feel a soft pressure, as if a blindfold had been tied around his face, covering the upper half of it.
He reached his hands up to his face feeling the cloth he had expected to be there. A voice, familiar though surprisingly young, broke the unnerving silence.
"Sasuke?"
"Dobe?" he replied, the relief filling the nickname with a warmth that the air was sorely lacking.
"I'm here," and suddenly he was, there was a dip in what Sasuke guessed was a mattress he was lying on. A hand grasped his shoulder, and another cupped his cheek. Sasuke leant into it, reassured by the familiarity of it.
Beep.
"What the hell is that goddamned beeping? Could you turn it off?"
Sasuke turned his head and kissed the hand that he leant into, scowling against the callused skin.
"It's your heart monitor," Naruto's voice took on a hesitant tone, a begrudging tone. It was one that Sasuke had learned to dread hearing, to scoff at. It meant that there was something the dobe didn't want to say, and would dance around for hours if he could.
"I'm in the hospital? In Konoha?"
"Yes."
One of Sasuke's hands had been replaced by Naruto's on his face, but the other was still resting on the cloth. Carefully Sasuke slipped the free hand under the cloth on his face and felt for his eyes. But…they were…gone. They just weren't there. No eyelids, but there were stitches to sew shut the incisions where his eyelids had been. Instead there were two holes, rough blistered burns where the skin had been cauterized and the eyes had been removed. His eyes, his sharingan, everything that made him who he was, an Uchiha, had been completely stripped from him.
Why was he so calm? Sasuke felt like he was getting colder, but then there was a cut off. He couldn't sink any deeper. There was something that was keeping him from getting too worked up. He was in a hospital, he was bound to be pumped full of drugs.
"What happened?"
"When we were in the mists, we were trapped in Haku's mirrors of ice and some of the needles hit your eyes and they were poisoned…" Naruto managed, "we had to pull out your eyes to keep the poison from spreading…"
"Oh my god! Oh my god, you, you sick bastard!"
"It's not as if I was aiming for them…"
"I'm going to kill you!"
"For your precious person?"
"It's a miracle you're alive really, I mean, the amount of blood you lost was amazing…if it weren't for a few mist nins, we wouldn't have been able to get you back to Konoha in time to get you the care you needed."
"Dobe…" Sasuke felt that his throat had been seared with hot coals and now it was dried and parched, his words would come out a dusty rattle like dead leaves, "…you're talking like an old man."
"I am an old man, and so are you-" Naruto hesitated, suddenly paranoid.
"It's me, dobe, don't worry. I just mean be careful, we are in a public place you know."
"Yeah, but it's not like anyone here cares about us, I mean, you should have heard Kakashi…"
"He was here earlier?"
"A few days ago."
"Ah."
"We've had our qualifications as nin removed."
"Why?"
"I'm crazy and you're a cripple, why else?"
Naruto's touch left him just as swiftly as the joy had left his voice. Sasuke heard something heavy scrape across the floor and the pressure in the mattress leave.
"Naruto?" he sounded so pathetic.
"I'm here, just in the chair next to your bed."
No, he wasn't that weak. He could do this. Sasuke clenched at the sheets. Before he snapped and reached out, Naruto reached for him, laying a hand on his quivering own.
"I'm here."
"I know."
"I'm not leaving."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"…yes."
More scraping and then Sasuke could feel a weight lay over his abdomen, an arm snaking through the gap between his back and the mattress (he was propped up at an angle). Sasuke jerked abruptly, he hated not seeing anything. Naruto hummed against his belly and Sasuke stilled, resting a hand in the short blond hair.
"Wait," Sasuke mumbled, "Haku and Zabuza? We went on the mission to the mists in this life?"
"Yeah."
"Haku and Zabuza are at home though."
"Really?"
"Mm, cousins, Chikao's children."
"Who?"
"Your aunt, grandpa's sixth child."
"Ah."
"Oh never mind, if I ask them they'll just say something about time being an illusion or something. Somehow this was their last life too and that we came into it after they'd left and so it all makes sense really and-"
"Teme you're rambling, do you want me to get the nurse in here to check you over and we can see about leaving this dump?"
"Yes."
Naruto shifted again, and Sasuke heard a click. His mate settled down again.
"What was that?"
"Pressed the nurse summoning button."
A nurse it did summon. Sasuke heard a door open and footsteps, then a polite noise that sounded like someone clearing their throat.
"Sir?"
"When can we leave?" Naruto asked bluntly.
Sasuke knew that he shouldn't cling. He let Naruto sit up and talk to the nurse. He didn't pay much attention to what they were saying. The crazy to his cripple could handle it just fine. Sasuke scowled. He didn't like being the cripple in that pair. He wasn't a cripple.
A pair of hands that were two soft and petite to be Naruto's settled on his face and Sasuke jerked back.
"I'm sorry Mr. Uchiha, but I need to check you over before I call the doctor in, alright?"
He nodded stiffly. He didn't want this woman touching him but it couldn't be helped. She lifted up his blindfold and her fingers slipped over his burnt skin. It was tender still, and he didn't like the feeling of someone else, someone he didn't know touching his empty eye sockets. He jerked away and she apologized, sincerely.
After that she started narrating, telling him what she was doing as she was doing it. Sasuke mostly wanted to beat her but surprisingly her talking helped a lot. He liked knowing what was going on. Of course, dobe was right there also, holding his hand, not leaving. Eventually the woman left the room to summon the doctor.
Sasuke spent his time waiting focusing on simply listening. When you lose one sense your others gain new heights. He knew it would take a while for his hearing to really improve enough to be a substitute for his sight. He might as well practice when he could. He would be getting plenty of practice.
He could hear quite well his heart monitor, and dobe's breathing, his own heart beat. There were the sounds of the hospital staff moving about in the hallways, talking to one another, giving orders, spreading gossip. Then there was the hustle and bustle of the main drag of Konoha below the window in the room. Sasuke tilted his head one way, and then the other, trying to decipher the location of the window. He knew it had to be sunny out, he wasn't sure why because he couldn't feel the sunlight coming through the window. There must be something blocking the light, all he could feel on his skin was a cool artificial substitute that came from the translucent bulbs overhead. He turned his head again and listened. He could hear some conversations, pockets of them, from the crowds outside the window. Something about him! What a shame, that Uchiha brat isn't really an Uchiha anymore, huh? Lost his eyes… Sasuke scowled deeper. How dare they?
"Mr. Uchiha?"
Sasuke turned towards voice, "Yes?"
"Hello, I'm the med-nin who handled your surgery, Dr. Muuta," a deep baritone informed him, "how are you feeling?"
"Alright except for the whole blindness thing," Sasuke quipped. He knew it didn't help to be snarky in this particular situation but really, what was this man expecting? It fit in with his 'role' to be bitter. He was back to being a bratty twelve-year old bent on revenge. Sasuke gagged when he tried to roll eyes that weren't there. He shivered.
"Sasuke?"
He felt Naruto shift his hold on him and he heard the concern in his voice.
"Easy to forget eyes aren't there," he offered as an explanation.
His statement was met with an awkward silence. Footsteps sounded on the floor, leather and squeaky, something was picked up at the end of his bed. It sounded like plastic scraping, maybe there were charts there. Sasuke seemed to recall that the med-nin's kept slim plastic binders filled with patient's charts hanging on the end of their beds. He wasn't sure why.
"Well, it looks like, side from a psych-eval, you're all set. The burns from cauterizing the cuts in your eye sockets are still tender, so I'm going to prescribe a cream for you to put on twice a day. You'll need to keep that blindfold on, any elongated exposure to light will cause a strain on the skin for a while."
"So I can leave?"
"I would think so, but getting your discharge papers through might take a few hours, I'm sure we can have you checked out by the end of the day. I'd like you to have that cream in hand before I let you go home though."
"Hn."
There was a brief pause in which Sasuke heard no movement and then Naruto said, "That means 'ok'."
Sasuke wished he could glare.
As promised, hours later Sasuke was checked out. He had his IV's removed, his sockets (as he'd taken to calling them) 'checked' again, and then was given clothes to change into. Though Sasuke had gone two lives in a row without wearing his forehead protector, he still fell slightly naked without it. In its place now he had the blindfold. He was growing attached to it already, he felt safe having it over his gruesome eyeless visage that perhaps looked too stern for his age. As dobe had said, they were old men now in the bodies of children. These mortals that floundered through life like fish upon breathless land all appeared childish to the two of them.
The air was warm and soft on his skin. It had been spring, hadn't it? Back then? He couldn't remember. Naruto had a hand on his arm and was leading him through the crowds, though Sasuke never once brushed against someone. The people must have been parting for them. The hisses, the pitied whispers, the horrified gasps, they intruded his ears, crawling and writhing towards his eardrum like determined ants and lithe hornets. Every gesture, whether it was sympathetic or malevolent sought to sting and pester him into fury.
"Alright, stairs here," Naruto informed him.
Sasuke tilted his head down so his chin was against his chest. It pacified his mind to think that if he had eyes they would be looking at the stairs he would have to climb. He reached out one foot and tentatively found the first step. He pulled himself up onto it and felt Naruto climb with him. Another step, he stubbed his toe on the edge of it before he found purchase in the warped wood top. It was like this he climbed up the stairs, testing, moving slowly like an infant. Eventually, roughly halfway up the horrible climb he managed to guess the expected height of each step and had less fumbles. It was still frustrating beyond belief.
On the second floor Sasuke was led, when they came to a halt he heard Naruto dig around in his pockets. A metal jingling, keys, were pulled from the pocket and fitted into the lock on the door they'd stopped in front of. He heard the door open and then he was brought inside.
"This is your apartment?" Sasuke asked.
"Yes," Naruto answered, closing the door and locking it behind them, "Now I'm not going to baby you, have fun exploring while I go to the bathroom. I know you wanted to feel the room at the hospital."
Sasuke smirked, quashing the nervousness that grew as Naruto left his side, taking his touch with him. It figured that through his scowl Naruto could understand that much. Sasuke listened, and reached out his right hand, trying to find the wall. At first he fumbled about in the air, wondering, and then he found it. He had to scoot over a foot. As he'd been sitting in the hospital bed all day Sasuke had been pondering ways to overcome his loss of sight other than improving his hearing. He'd spent a great amount of time that day listening. He hadn't spoken and had shushed his mate more than a few times. Sasuke found that his ears now twitched quite a bit.
One theory he'd formulated was using webs of chakra to assess the location of things. It was easy to do on scouting missions, why couldn't he do the same now? Of course he'd tried that in the hospital room and been thoroughly scolded by the nurse for wasting chakra he should be using to recover. Sasuke didn't understand exactly what he was healing. Sure the cuts all over might look horrible to some, but they were nothing compared to the things he'd experienced over the lifetimes. A shattered skull and broken spine? Near fatal smoke inhalation only ceased by a knife through the heart? Slitting his veins open? He'd died so many times mere wounds such as these were embarrassing to find bothersome.
Again Sasuke focused his chakra, allowing it to pool in his hands and from there form it into thread, spools at the ready. He unwound the lines of life energy, until they were loops hanging from his lax fingers. Casting them out he felt them fall and land upon a myriad of surfaces. Images appeared in his head of the shapes of things. A few feet from him to the left was a low surface, a table, a coffee table. Behind it a few inches or so was a chair, no, a couch, a futon? Sasuke reeled in the webs and shuffled forward a few steps. He reached out and prodded the table with his foot, it was as he'd expected it to be.
Slowly he made his way through the apartment, tossing out the lines and assessing the shapes of things that arose in his mind. Not far from the futon to the right was a doorway. There was the kitchen. Sasuke stood in the doorway with his webs coating the surfaces. The fridge was in the far left corner, the sink next to it, and then to the left of the sink was a modest oven and stove. There was cabinetry above and a small square table pushed to one corner with two chairs.
"I knew it wouldn't take you long," Naruto's voice was soothing on his ears. He'd heard the bathroom door open as he'd inspected the living room. But as the footsteps had carried away from him instead of toward him, Sasuke had continued with his exploration.
Sasuke turned around to face Naruto and threw his chakra strings onto him, just for curiosity's sake. The shape of his mate that the energy webs depicted was humorous in its ambiguity. He would guess, if this were any other person, they were short, and had some sort of furry creature atop their head. His hair confused the chakra and so the shape was odd. Sasuke reeled it back into him, suspending the focus and stepping forward, his hands found Naruto's shoulders without hesitation. From their they ran up his neck and traced his jaw. Arms snaked around Sasuke's waist and pulled him into an embrace.
"I'm sorry," Naruto said.
Sasuke felt the words as much as he heard them. Naruto's face was closer to his than he'd noticed a minute ago. At that moment, Sasuke knew that though he loathed tears, he wished at the moment he had the option of shedding them.
"I know," he murmured, "and…and I am too, if I could have just stayed with you, so much of our stupidity could have been spared. But…"
"We wouldn't be who we are."
Sasuke's lips twitched into a hesitant smile. He guided Naruto's face closer with sure hands, bringing their lips together. It was odd how every kiss with the other-dobe of his previous life incited arousal, and passion, and drove thought from his head. Yet this kiss, soft and slow, felt like coming home. It was worn, warm, and far less awkward than Sasuke imagined it might be. He pulled back and listened. He realized, Naruto's breathing was ragged, not from any desire, but from tears. What bittersweet happiness that Sasuke could not show, Naruto felt for them both.
TBC...