Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn
by Hic Iacet Mori
Love winds the strongest of red strings and builds the strongest of red walls, wrought both from the same blood that loves a brother and a lover. Without blood, however, a red string can break in two and a red wall can break apart, but know that a string can be tied and a wall can be a bridge. What separates can unite, what comes between can be crossed, what draws away can draw you near if you are desperate or hopeful enough—if you are willing to bleed for the right to love and be loved.
Sasuke paused, panting, his dark eyes liquid with despair and frustration. He took a deep breath and suddenly, he couldn't hold himself up anymore.
"Do you even understand what you did?" he asked quietly, tiredly, falling to his knees. He raised his face to the darkening skies, his pale face translucent with his inner turmoil. His dark eyes sought the heavens before falling down once again, returning to a white slab of marble engraved with his brother's name.
"Didn't you think it's possible, that she would become important to me? So important that I—that I couldn't even live a day and not... not think about her? Worry if she's resting, eating well? If she's smiling? Didn't you... didn't you think I would fall for her, like you did?" he whispered.
A hand pressed against his eyes, trying to hold in the darkness welling within him. Sasuke had spent the better part of his visit yelling in the emptiness of the cemetery, punching the ground where his brother lay until his blood drew speckles of red on fading green grasses—now, he was fighting against the need to take off that headstone and unbury his own brother with his bare hands, so he could yell all his anger, all his loss, all his pain, all his betrayal.
Sasuke was betrayed—by his brother, by her, by himself, by life. Because despite knowing that she and his brother were together—happily, perfectly—that she was his almost family not in the way he had wanted to imagine, that she slept with him and dreamt of his brother, Sasuke still wanted her, deeply so—broken eyes, imperfect smile, shady past and all. He still wanted her and he didn't care what she or his brother or anyone else would say and it was all so fucked up and it hurt so fucking much it's hard to breathe she's his air it's hard to breathe it hurt it hurt.
"Nii-san... I hate you so much," he murmured, his voice nigh inaudible, hiding the deep ache, the cracks in his heart. "Why did you leave me to her?"
Why did you leave me to someone whose heart you already claimed?
A broken plea. "I need her. Let her go, Nii-san, I need her."
I can't live without her now.
Sasuke unclenched his fist and reached out, trembling, for the jasmines he had planted on Itachi's grave. With a shaky breath, he inhaled deeply and he fell on all fours, collapsing at the weight crushing on his heart. Tears stung at the corner of his eyes. A drop of blood landed on a velvet white petal.
"I'm sorry... but I need her more."
He slowly stood up, his pale fingers gently skimming his brother's name. With a last look on the rising moon, Sasuke left.
That night, she found him on his bed doing crossword puzzles and pretending that the bloody white handkerchiefs wrapped haphazardly around his hands were not bothering him. After a string of curses, she treated his wounds and dressed his hands in bandages, swearing up a storm. Sasuke sat quietly, listening to her breathe, breathing in her scent, wrapping himself around the blue worry in her eyes and thinking it's worth it, you're worth it, it hurt so much and you're worth so much more.
"You're a fucking idiot," she ended.
He raised his dark eyes, wanting to capture hers. She evaded with a cast in her eyes.
"I couldn't help it," he admitted.
She snorted and drew away, taking her warmth with her.
He returned to his crossword, his hands wrapped in the warmth she left on his bandages.
I'm falling for you.
Sasuke wondered what she dreamed about, on these nights when pain marred her features and sweat drenched her brows. Who did she fight against, who did she struggle so earnestly away from? Who could make her swallow her scream, who could cause her to choke on her tears?
And why, why wouldn't she cry?
Her eyes—they reflected the grief she wouldn't shed. They were bright only from suppressed tears, splinters of sorrow making them shine brighter until those who saw her thought they shone eternally from happiness. He himself had been convinced by those eyes, those beautiful eyes that showed the shards of the sky, the slivers of oceans, the pieces of glass spun from blue mists and shadows. After seeing how her eyes had been, though, Sasuke wanted to see her eyes whole once more. Whole and dancing and alive.
If only she would cry to him...
"Na—" he swallowed, cutting himself off. She couldn't know that he knew her name now. "Dobe," Sasuke said instead, gently prodding her awake. She whimpered and the sound shot straight to his heart. He wanted so much to pull her into his arms and comfort her.
"Usuratonkachi, wake up," he murmured. Clear eyes shot open, as if she hadn't been sleeping in the first place. Sasuke was used to it by now.
"Hey, why're you still up?" she slurred. While her senses automatically rebooted when she woke up, it took a moment longer for the sleepiness to disappear from her voice. He found it endearing, like a newly-woken feline, up on all fours with a predatory glint in her eyes, only to stop to curl a pink tongue in a yawn as her tail flicked lazily behind her.
"Can't sleep?" she asked.
Sasuke chose to answer with his own question. "What do you dream about?" he asked.
She sighed and sat up, black sheets pooling on her waist. "Not that it's any of your business, but it's none of your business," she said sleepily.
He glared. She frowned. "Teme, I don't dream."
Sasuke snorted. She wasn't done, though. "I don't dream normal dreams, is what I mean... sure, I dream, sometimes, but mostly I see memories."
The ensuing silence was heavy, full of unspoken questions and unheard answers. He glanced at her when she stood up and stretched, moaning as her joints cracked. He couldn't decide if he was disgusted or entranced. Sasuke settled for unhealthy interest instead.
"Off to bed," she muttered, making her way to the door. Sasuke knew she expected him to follow, and he also knew she expected him to put up a fuss because he never did well with following anyone else's orders, but suddenly he was tired of all the shit that stood between the two of them. He didn't owe her anything—okay, perhaps he was wrong in his assessment—and she didn't owe him anything either, but they were closer than familiar acquaintances now and a little more honesty would be more than accepted. Even if he wanted more.
But what were they?
She froze at the door. Sasuke belatedly realized he had spoken out loud.
"Well... that's kinda unexpected," she said, her back to him, her chuckles weak to his ears. "What, no more 'I'm too old to sleep just because you ordered me to' shit?"
She still owed him a cuff on the head for her comments in the video, he suddenly remembered, and so using his vastly-improved stealth, Sasuke snuck up behind her and did just that before she could dodge. It seemed awkwardness made her less conscious of her surroundings, and it seemed a cuffing could dispel the awkwardness that had settled between them.
"The fuck you did that for?" she growled, turning to glare at his shoulder.
Sasuke smirked in response. "For being a moron."
"So now you start doing it?" she groused. "And I'm not a moron," she added with a darker glare. He wanted to reach out and pat her head, she looked like a sulky puppy. Sasuke did just that and he chuckled at her scandalized expression. She pouted and he immediately looked away. Sasuke wasn't sure if he could stop himself from grabbing her for a harsh kiss and he didn't want to make things more awkward than they already were.
Without another word, they left Itachi's former room and went to his. Sasuke prepared for bed, the unanswered question suddenly hanging heavily in the air. He couldn't stop berating himself. He had probably ruined their night for being such a child.
"Don't worry so much," she chided him. He looked up beneath the fringes of his hair, and Sasuke must have appeared so pathetic that she reached a hand forward to smooth his creased brows.
It felt so damned wonderful.
"I'm sure we're friends, even if you're a bastard," she said, moving to sit beside him as he leaned forward to her touch. She absentmindedly drew circles on his forehead. He struggled from closing his eyes in bliss, grunting instead to show his not-so-grudging appreciation. "And maybe something else, but," she shrugged, "I think labels are too limiting, personally. So maybe..." she huffed, retracting her hand to rub her face, her visible blue eye trained on his chin, "Hell, I know you're important and that's all that matters. I think it's enough."
And that night, it was enough for him too.
"Did you love him?"
Her face, framed with waves of gold that had escaped her red laces, was softer under the sparse light from the stars dancing past the red curtains. Since that night he had asked his first question about her chest bindings, Sasuke always asked a question after their night together—not just to reach out but to confirm to him, to her, that what they just did was real and she couldn't hide from its reality anymore.
And it pleased him, always, when she responded—sometimes grudgingly, sometimes indifferently, but always answering, always there.
He took a silent breath, bracing himself for her answer. Sasuke wanted her to know that he knew, that he accepted. He also wanted to know if she still felt the same.
Red glinted on his periphery.
"Yes."
His heartbeat sped up. Knowing and hearing it for himself are two vastly different things. Despite being prepared for what he would hear, Sasuke could still feel the sting wrought by her answer.
She wasn't done, though.
"I do love him."
In the silence, something within him broke.
Sasuke turned away.
She was becoming more beautiful in his eyes.
It wasn't fair.
Something had changed between them. It had been three nights since he had asked that question and Sasuke, though he knew ruing over the past is a pointless preoccupation, couldn't stop going over and over that conversation and wishing that he hadn't opened his mouth and asked. Where before he felt a specter hovering between them at random moments, it was now an acknowledged phantom that vivified a wall between them that he couldn't breach.
It was his fault, all his damn fault. He missed touching her, missed the moments he could wrap his arms around her before she woke up, missed hearing the music of her pleasure. What he missed more, though, was her presence—because even when she sat by the shadows, slept by the bed, watched by the window, waited by the door, her heart wasn't with him and all he had of her was a shell.
He missed her so much.
Sasuke flung his bedsheets aside and jumped to his feet, his footfalls muffled by the dark blue carpet. He flung his door open and crossed the few feet to stop at the door he had begun calling hers in his mind. He grabbed the doorknob and paused, hesitating.
What could he say?
Sasuke closed his eyes and leaned his head on the door. Really, what could he say? It was his fault, he knew, because while he shouldn't have even asked the question in the first place, he shouldn't have felt slighted about the answer at all. He had no right to feel that way. Yes, Sasuke had a reason, but that didn't give him the right... and she didn't know.
He sighed. What was his point when he asked that again? It had seemed a good idea at that time...
I'll apologize, he thought suddenly. For what, he wasn't sure. Maybe for asking an intimate question? It obviously brought some memories she couldn't handle well. It was insensitive of him, too. She couldn't even grieve, wouldn't even cry... Was she holding out because of him? Because Uchiha Sasuke needed her to be strong? But he didn't, he just needed her.
Because she still couldn't accept in the deepest corners of her soul that Uchiha Itachi was gone?
With a decisive nod, he opened the door, his face blank, carefully empty of emotions. In the dim room, he immediately sighted her curled under the window, vermillion drapes floating around her like red maple leaves on their last flight in autumn. In her arms was a familiar red pillow, her nose buried in its softness, as if in sleep she could inhale its cotton and dream of lazy rolling clouds in a field of wildflowers. Her dark gold lashes fanned on her cheeks, shadows making it appear longer than they really were. Her pink lips were curved down, her tan brows slightly creased, and on her cheeks shone tears yet to dry in her sleep.
She cried.
He glared at the pillow, his heart squeezing in his chest even as he poured as much hatred as possible on an inanimate object. It was that pillow that began everything—her nightmares, her dreams, all brought to life by the lingering scent of chamomile that wound around her in her sleep. His only consolation was he hardly smelled that scent anymore, that scent that brought both love and jealousy in his heart, as that pillow, that bed, this entire room, smelled more of him and her now than him and her.
And yet she clung to that pillow like it was her remaining thread to sanity—
To him...
It's not her fault, he thought. She didn't know she was hurting him. It wasn't her fault his brother found the happiness Sasuke had always wished for him in her. It wasn't her fault that she was Uzumaki Naruto, that she held Itachi's heart in her hands the way she now held his. It wasn't her fault that she was annoying, captivating, loyal, noisy, that she was exactly what Sasuke needed in his life. It wasn't her fault she still loved his brother.
It wasn't her fault but it still hurt. What his mind knew was different from what his heart did.
The wind blew, the curtains fluttering around her. He could smell them, jasmines. They suited her perfectly.
A strand of gold landed on her cheek. He used it as an excuse to brush a tentative thumb against the scars of her cheek. In all the time he had slept with her, woken her, he had yet to touch her odd facial marks. They were rougher than their surrounding skin but he liked the contrast of the textures. Like her. She was at times annoying and frustrating, at times endearing and caring. She was as loud as she was as silent, and the darkness from where she hid herself couldn't conceal the brightness he could see flaring inside her.
She was so gorgeous, so enchanting in her contrasts, and his heart melted a little when she leaned unconsciously to his touch, her features calm.
Sasuke paused.
... Why wasn't she stopping him?
"It takes her a long time to sleep in an unfamiliar place, but it takes her an even longer time to wake up when she sleeps in the presence of someone she trusts."
A small smile made its way on his lips.
Trust. She trusted him. Him, Sasuke. Naruto trusted Sasuke. She trusted him in her sleep, and he found this realization more heartwarming than her confession that she thought him a friend.
He recalled the past nights where she did the same and Sasuke wondered how he could have missed that. She had been trusting him all along and he hadn't noticed. He had come to fall in the familiarity of their rituals that it took three nights of her empty presence to bring this change to his attention.
Something stirred within him, something light, something happy. Maybe he had a chance, after all?
Sasuke almost drew back in shock when hazy blue eyes fluttered open.
"Ne, teme?" she asked in her sleepy voice, the one that made her sound like a child. "There a problem?"
His hair whipped around him as he shook his head. She hummed in understanding, her eyes drifting shut again.
"Can I—" he hesitated a moment. His reluctance vanished when a drowsy eye opened, "—sleep here?"
"Be m' guest," she mumbled—slurred—scooting sluggishly to her right. Sasuke sat gracefully beside her under the window, turning to his side to look at her. She opened another sleepy eye and he raised an eyebrow in response, daring her to ask him why he was staring. With a drowsy huff, she raised the red pillow in her arms and placed it on her left shoulder, before leaning into it and going back to sleep.
When her breathing had deepened once more, Sasuke raised his hand and gently wiped the dried tears on her cheeks. Then, sighing, he laid his head on the pillow between their shoulders, his black hair and pale skin stark against the red satin. Sasuke wasn't so sure what it meant, lying beside each other with the red pillow on their shoulders. Did this symbolize the ghost that had brought them together, or the ghost that would always come between them? Would that what they would be for the rest of their lives? Friends who could have been—something more, but for a red pillow, a white ghost?
As he drifted into sleep, Sasuke thought that perhaps, he shouldn't be finding meaning in everything. A pillow is a pillow and it would always be comfortable, more so when shared with someone precious to your heart. It's not a wall—and even if it was, a wall could be a bridge with the right perspective.
And then he realized, with the suddenness of clarity, that his brother would never stop him from reaching his dreams.
And so, with a peace in his heart, Sasuke closed his eyes and dreamed beside Naruto, a familiar red pillow weaving stories behind their eyes.
Span the red bridge and close your eyes—dream and in your dream, love completely, purely, until the red string ties around the heart of the one you love.