I don't own Naruto.
The constant song of crickets sounds from outside. The blinds are drawn – he's not a clue who has drawn them or when – he must've went under without realization. The window is ajar. A breeze tickles his feet, but he's too restless to care.
He doesn't know how long it's been since Sakura's quiet plea, but he knows he can't stop thinking about the quiver of her voice and the sobs he never wanted to witness yet always was the cause of; unwavering in their intensity and steadily breaking down the fibers of his heart, chunk by chunk, until the blood seemed to be pumping purely out of spite.
It's the dead of night. Naruto has continuously uttered some words in his delirium in what seems numerous eclipses from light to dark, but his breathing is even, the sound of the adjacent machine conveying no irregularities. He supposes it's some sort of solace in his miasma of thoughts.
His limb is aggravating him; he feels the phantom pain ping-pong its way from mangled limb to spine. His vision is clearing up, his brother's eyes acclimating to darkness.
He sincerely tries not to fall back onto the proverbial sword; but the incessant words cut bone deep, and it's stronger than him. He thinks about his life, about the injustice, the death, the rot and enveloping anger he feels is the blanket of his life. Anger was in everything he did, thought, said; anger was the sustenance, the water, the cursed blood swimming in his veins and capillaries, from his immoral eyes to his toes.
Muted realization seeps into his corporeality – he has given himself up to death, that unforgettable night. When he touched hot blood and cold air stabbed his face, fingers grasping at salvation until his nails loosened from their beds. Crimson veil across his vision, moon to earth.
The decay was in the dark oak wood, in the air, the soiled koi ponds and uprooted gardens.
Decay was in the silence, echoing down to the atoms of a dense atmosphere, metastasizing from crumbling walls to the fences framing the grave site of his kin.
He's been rotting from the interior, chained to this decay and bringing it with him everywhere he went. A ceaseless companion, an unforgettable reminder of the only reason he's not however many feet underground with the rest.
The murder of his brother by his own now severed hand was supposed to be the end. As the witness of decay, he would cease to exist; a walking corpse long overdue being put to earth.
But instead the rot kept festering, with every truth unmasked, each layer of uncovered sediment more unforgiving and noxious than the last.
He was submitted to evanescence. Longstanding goals aside from the one that crowned his life and actions ceased to exist after that fateful moment, when the fingers of his brother's tired hand marked his forehead in that perplexing way he expressed in everything.
Shame rattles him as he remembers - even in that moment, he was a petrified little boy and hasn't changed at all - same tired, horrified child, nevertheless a decade older, yet unchanged and stagnant. It bewilders him, because wasn't his brother a child in essence and in age, carrying out deeds many longevous adults wouldn't dare do themselves?
His brother and himself - the line should've ended that day; the unprejudiced happiness and belonging he'd given up could never be experienced, no matter how intensely his frail youthful heart yearned. And it would be stronger than him, gripping all of his subconscious, in all moments of dismay.
The other side would be a cadaverous existence. The very one he's swimming in tonight, and however many days he's been stunned out of his version of normalcy.
Yet the lineage wouldn't have been severed; Madara and Obito were still skulking around and he was too out of control of his life not to indulge in the opposite. Debts had to be paid, plans of domination to be carried out. He justifies it like so. But he'd always emit the perturbing excitement he reveled in the discord, a visceral attestation of eye for an eye, literally or otherwise.
Still, what is keeping him from letting go at present? It's the right choice, he thinks. At long last, there's no more wrongs to be righted, no dominion to be established with the goal of peace, and no longer any gratification in the dissension – except the dues to his brother by heart, the girl who's heart he fragmented in perpetuity, the man who had always attempted to be a surrogate father, yet showing more compassion he had ever had prospect to witness from the real one; but the dishonor and ignominy runs cellular and he thinks his characteristic obstinacy will not prevent him from completely letting himself turn to dust this go around.
Conviction and himself were partners in crime, but it has left him splintered; half of him is missing. He's overwhelmed with uncertainty. But beyond doubt he knows the statues of his predecessors and the noise of white water should've been his last moment of sentience.
He's not sure when night gave birth to day, but light is fighting against the confines of drapes, eager to penetrate the shadow.
Lassitude invades his retinas and mind; he can just about imagine the capillaries bursting in the white and indigo of his eye. Passage of time defined by rumination and he's been stuck in a cycle; the Samsara of thoughts, hauling back and fourth between death and hope.
Too late he becomes aware of a dialogue in hushed voices battling with intensity somewhere beyond the door.
He bores into the frame, grateful for any sort of distraction. He recognizes Naruto's failed attempt at being quiet and Sakura's more subdued reprimands.
He turns his head and finds evidence of his friend's absence, abandoned sheets strewn over the mattress and draping to the floor. Any proof is welcome because he feels reality is fleeting and he needs a way to ground himself.
The voices cease all-together and the door opens with ferocity.
"Sasuke," Naruto all but screams, and the sound ricochets in between his ears with his eyes promptly shutting, the feeling of creases pulling at his skin.
He takes his usual pose, all crossed arms and confidence, subsequently taking hefty strides to Sasuke.
"How are you feeling?" he asks nonchalantly, as if the infliction both of them suffered was nothing more than a nuisance.
"Leave him be, Naruto – and keep it down," Sakura follows suit, her frame swallowed by over-sized white robes. He can't help but look at her, and notices she looks as tired as he feels.
"It's just past six in the morning, people are still sleeping." Expertly, she moves intrusive and stubborn rose strands from her face. She travels further to the right and twirls a mechanism, dispersing the shadow with light by lifting the wood by a couple of centimeters. She hasn't looked at him at all.
"Uhm, you sure he's alive?" He waves a hand in front of Sasuke's face, his own contorted in confusion and Sasuke almost feels like smirking from familiarity, if he wasn't growing annoyed at Naruto's senseless conduct and painfully aware of Sakura's diffidence.
"I'm the doctor," she breathes out almost sarcastically, with a furrowed brow, taking a stride to the end of his bed and picking up a piece of plastic. She shuffles the papers attached to it; he assumes it's his patient information, though he's sure she already knows both of their conditions by heart.
"Is he, like, unconscious? Y'know, like how rabbits sleep? His eyes look fucked," Naruto says incredulously and Sakura only throws him a look akin to disbelief.
"Sasuke," he's surprised when he realizes it's Sakura's stern voice. "How are you feeling?" The question is professional and distant. The torrent she fought against and lost previously has vanished, any remote evidence of such painted in the color around her eyes, but betraying nothing of it in her countenance. He's enveloped in uncomfortable confusion.
He tries and fails to release a sound. His vocal chords grind against the walls of his throat; unceremoniously he attempts to sit up and in belated realization notices hands holding onto his sides. Naruto's lonely arm firmly supporting his left, while Sakura steadily grips his right. They help him settle against his pillows but his disquiet only grows. He spares a fleeting glance between them, taking note of the deep uncertainty etched into their features, before choosing to look straight ahead.
"… I'm fine," he lies, coarse voice vending conviction with fervour and hoping it sells.
They release him and share a look. Sakura settles her hand onto her hip, the other pressed against her thigh alongside the patient chart, almost seeming exasperated; he's not sure with what, though he has a good number of guesses. Naruto's stance is an unnerving display, knuckles turning white, locked to his flank. His cerulean peer lost in thought.
Sasuke alternates his gaze between the two, his eyes noticeably dry. They feel ablaze and chartaceous. Words escape him.
"Naruto, please lay down. I promise you'll have time to roam about soon enough," Sakura says after a moment. The ineffectual ponytail swings with the sway of her hip, releasing more locks in the process.
Sakura analyzes the machine to his right for several moments before scribbling something down onto the chart. It's a worn ocean color, with scratches and etchings on the underside. The pen doesn't look any better; he notices chew marks at its apex and depleting ink escapes beneath the visible part of the cartridge.
A disconcert quiet blankets the shinobi; the only things loud enough being the clock telling time and Sakura's rapid scrawls.
She swiftly returns the plastic in its place and walks to Naruto's port side. He hears her voice soften underneath the words.
"I know you're angry, but you can't ignore your health like this. I have to put the IV back in…," she trails off as Naruto whines "I feel fine, Sakura - believe it!" Sasuke wonders what Naruto feels anger with.
"No getting out of this one, Naruto." She dons rubber gloves and selects a needle. Sasuke doesn't know what she proceeds to do; her hands hide past his vantage point.
"You look like you need one of those aye-wee things," he pouts then yelps after she smacks him over the head with a closed fist. "Stay still, please", her voice reverberates in mock sing-song.
A moment comes and goes. Sasuke never liked needles so he passes his attention onto the light seeping from the window. The temperature in the room has risen.
"Ouch."
Sasuke lets a ghost of a smile graze his cheek.
A/N: I'm not a doctor lol.
More to come this week!