Silence of the Mojitos

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

A/N: The penultimate chapter, I think.

Chapter Five: Desperation

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Immortality.

The word has a glorious sort of ring to it, doesn't it? The taste of something desirable, something needed. Something the great lust after, something the weak know only from legend.

Something magnificent.

Suigetsu walked in with a stunned expression. "He's waking up."

The hermit looked up sharply. "Sasuke?"

"No, the queen. Of course Sasuke!"

The hermit shot up off his rocking chair and rushed past him. "Did you apply the salve, like I showed you? His burns—"

"He won't let me touch him," Suigetsu mumbled sheepishly. The old man turned, and his eyes widened. He laid a wrinkled hand on the teen's shoulder.

"I'll look out for him. For you too. You may be a brat, but at least you're sincere about it."

"Thanks?"

"I'll let you have some time to prepare the words of groveling gratitude I actually deserve."

Suigetsu snorted. "That'll be the day."

Sasuke tossed in a quagmire of half-slumber, groaning incomprehensibly. The hermit shooed Suigetsu out, more to keep the water being's distress at a low ebb than because he was distracting him. Taking a small rowan bowl of gooey mix, he slathered it onto the gas burns on Sasuke's body. The alabaster skin, he mused, would always bear scars of this incident. But perhaps the boy's mind might be healed. If only he would see past Suigetsu's silly exterior. If only he could grasp the extent of the love the idiot boy held for him.

He paused to let the Uchiha roll over again, eyeballs moving worriedly under closed eyelids, words falling from unconscious lips. There should be nothing; the hermit thought sadly, that could make such a young boy so upset. The worst he ought to feel was the heartbreak of being stood up. Yet here he was, writhing in a nightmare even the hermit, with his decades of experience with all things unpleasant could not fathom.

The world was steady. But Sasuke was swimming through it. He'd never liked swimming, so why was he doing it now? Why couldn't he stop?

Wide, weird plains. Arching vistas of desolation. Loneliness howled across the grasses, and Sasuke shivered. Whispers in his ear told him things they had no business making him listen to. He didn't want to, he didn't want to, but they were talking…

"The secret to immortality, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru's voice hissed as if through ether, "Would you like to know?"

No…no…

Suigetsu spoke. "A person's soul, babe. You gotta eat a person's…soul…"

Oh please no…

They chorused. "That's what happened in the tower, Sasuke. Suigetsu/I ate humans. Their bodies, trying to find a way to eat their souls. We tore their hearts apart, looking for it. We picked their brains, looking for it."

Why? He didn't want to hear this, he didn't want to hear this, he didn't want immortality! Suigetsu's face loomed in front of him, sweet and smiling. He reached out to Sasuke, to hold him and cuddle him and save him.

"Sasuke," he whispered, "Babe…"

Sasuke reached back, reached for those arms with a strangled sob. "Suigetsu, please—"

He smiled.

The teeth flashed.

Sasuke screamed as they bit into his flesh. Into his soul. He felt Suigetsu all around him, but it was so utterly frightening, it was nothing remotely comforting. Suigetsu was consuming him, and Sasuke wasn't dying, he was fading from Sasuke to Suigetsu, becoming part of the lattice work that was the water ninja's body.

His eyes fought to open, but all he could see was blackness. He mewled desperately, pathetically, scrabbling at his eyes—he wasn't blind, thank god. Drops of grief had simply glued his eyes shut. He rubbed at them hard, taking the pain as proof of his existence. A hand guided his hands away and he recoiled from what was surely Suigetsu's touch. But the voice didn't match, nor the words it was saying, and when he opened his eyes, the hand holding his was baby soft and withered, with liver spots. He fell back with a groan of relief.

"Just you relax, child, and let me apply the rest of this salve to your body. Aye, you relax. I won't hurt you, child, and you just lie there and let me tend to your wounds."

"Who…brought me here…?"

"The little white haired brat did. Was worried sick about you, he was. No, no," the old man tutted as Sasuke struggled to get up, "No, he's not here right now. Listen to me, child, lay back. That's right. You're wounded, child, in body and mind, and I can fix the latter better than the former, so just relax. I'll fetch you valerian root in a bit. Sleep, aye, but a dreamless sleep."

He sure talks a lot, Sasuke thought, But at least he's not Suigetsu.

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Second Wave

The boy was distraught.

Discouraged.

Despairing.

Drowning in damnable doubt.

Suigetsu was keeping guard.

How had he not learnt to never underestimate the water being? Even with just Sasuke nagging at him, Suigetsu had been a prodigious worker for all his semblance of laziness. With Sasuke as motivation, it was a wonder the Uchiha wasn't trussed up and being raped right now.

He needed his room to kill himself. He'd hit upon the perfect way. A jutsu from Orochimaru's personal archives. Gas fire. No smoke, no smell, no harm done to anyone but Sasuke.

And Suigetsu was keeping guard.

It wasn't as if his room had any windows, either. The inn was awkwardly designed, with twenty nine rooms and only five windows. Two on the bottom floor, in the reception. Three with the occupied pent houses. Sasuke was not jumping in like that. No way, no how.

He circled the building again, marveling that Suigetsu hadn't—I dunno, smelt him, sensed him, felt him. The palpable tension set his nerves ablaze. He was excited, and also a little angry. Certainly, if Suigetsu had been hovering here outside, and he was sitting inside, he would be able to tell that his lover was in the same, stupid village as he was—

"Heya, babe."

A shriek began to rent the air, but Suigetsu caught it in his lips and it quickly turned into a moan.

"I've missed you, babe."

Sasuke was falling all over again. The arms, the embrace, the kiss, the man.

"You just up and left me like that. Aren't you heartless? I'd made fish. Fucking fish. You know I hate seafood. And you just run away. Kiss," he commanded, and Sasuke automatically pressed his lips against his. Something clicked in his head though. Something important.

Suigetsu was a cannibal.

"Ah," he said. "Ah." He pushed away, stumbled away, fell away and out. He turned and ran. He dove into the first house he saw, and dashed up the stairs—knowing Suigetsu was following—throwing jutsu wildly around him to prevent pursuit—releasing his chakra to ignite the gas—this room, it would do—the containment words—the release of the gas, the combustion, the endearing pain…

The darkness.

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Third Wave

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

What. The. FUCK?

Why would he want to kill himself? Suigetsu's mind reeled with the impossibility of it. Sasuke was perfect. He was perfect. Why would anyone want to extinguish that? Sure he'd had a rough patch. Sure these were bad times. But he had Suigetsu to steer him through! What the fuck was he doing?

The fire was so strange, unlike any he'd put out before. It singed him, which had never happened before, and irritated him, which always happened before. He grunted as he heaved Sasuke over his shoulder. What was the idiot thinking? Thirty seconds it took for Suigetsu to catch up. It wasn't enough time for any fire to kill a man. Especially not a fire-user, an Uchiha.

The gas was poison.

Sasuke didn't wake up.

Suigetsu screamed through the night.

The hermit found him. The hermit told him who he was. Suigetsu agreed to follow him to his home deep underground. A series of caves carved by fire. Suigetsu was uncomfortable. But he would bear with it, because the old man could heal Sasuke.

"Now, let's tell your story, brat."

"I have a name, jackass."

"Nice to meet you, Jackass. You must've had awful parents."

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